Mosquitoes of the Genus Uranotaenia in the 
Solomon Islands (Diptera: Culicidae) 
John N. Belkin^ 
INTRODUCTION 
In a previous paper (Belkin, 1950) a revision 
of the culicine mosquitoes of the Solomon 
Islands was initiated, based on the extensive 
collections made during the American occu- 
pation of these islands from 1942 to 1946. 
General information on the background, lo- 
calities, collecting and rearing methods, and 
location of the material as well as a treatment 
of the genus Tripteroides will be found in that 
paper. 
The present study of the genus Uranotaenia 
is based on the examination of 3,967 speci- 
mens of seven species, distributed as to stages 
in the following manner: 1,459 adults, 415 
pupae, and 2,093 larvae. Of this material 107 
individuals, including all species, are repre- 
sented each by a larval (fourth instar) and a 
pupal skin and the corresponding adult. The 
importance of such individual rearings cannot 
be overemphasized in the genus Uranotaenia 
as, in over one half the collections where 
association of stages was made only through 
mass or lot rearings, at least two species were 
involved. The individually reared material 
forms the basis of this study. The complete 
chaetotaxy of the larva and pupa of 10 indi- 
viduals of each species was studied, and in 
the associated adults all the external morpho- 
logical features were observed in detail, except 
as noted under each species. From the study 
of the individually reared material, distin- 
guishing or diagnostic characters of each spe- 
cies were selected, and these in turn were 
checked in all the remaining material together 
^ Division of Entomology, University of California 
at Los Angeles. Manuscript received December 11, 
1951. 
with a notation of any striking variation in 
other characters. 
Terminology 
In the course of this study it became evi- 
dent that the terminologies currently in use 
in descriptive culicidology have failed to keep 
abreast of, and sometimes have ignored com- 
pletely, independent findings in comparative 
anatomy. Accordingly I have attempted to 
bring up-to-date and to homologize the chae- 
totaxy of the mosquito larva (Belkin, 1951: 
678-698) and pupa (Belkin, 1952: 115-130). 
These revised homologous terminologies are 
used in this paper. For the adults, I am using 
the same terminologies as in the previous 
paper (Belkin, 1950: 208), although it is evi- 
dent that these terminologies need to be re- 
viewed also. The few changes I have intro- 
duced here are self-explanatory. 
Descriptions and Illustrations 
In deference to the general practice, I have 
described the holotypes and allotypes of new 
species instead of drawing up composite spe- 
cies descriptions from the study of the entire 
type material as in the past. The immature 
stages are described from the pupal and larval 
exuviae of the holotype, thus insuring definite 
correlation. While such a procedure prevents 
the inclusion of more than one species in each 
sex of a new species and is desirable from the 
standpoint of definitely associating a nom- 
inal species with a specimen, I cannot agree 
that it is advisable taxonomically. Such de- 
scriptions of types, to be useful, must be 
exhaustive and are necessarily lengthy. There- 
fore, they almost invariably restrict the author 
to much shorter discussion on variation than 
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