Uranotaenia in Solomon Islands — B elkin 
pulcherrima Lynch Arribalzaga, 1891; 
Las Conchas, Buenos Ayres (the second 
of two species, by selection of Neveu- 
Lemaire, Soc. Zool. France, Mem. 15: 
227. 1902). 
1905. Anisocheleomyia Theobald, Entomolo- 
gist 38: 52-53. Type species: Anisoche- 
leomyia nivipesThtohAd, 1905; Queens- 
land (the first of two species, by selec- 
tion of Brunetti, Indian Mus. Calcutta, 
Rec. 10: 55. 1914). 
1905. Pseudouranotaenia Theobald, Jour. 
Econ. Biol. 1: 33. Type species: Pseudo- 
uranotaenia rowlandi Theobald, 1905; 
New Amsterdam, British Guiana 
( = Uranotaenia nataliae Lynch Arribal- 
zaga, 1891). Monobasic. 
1912. Pseudo ficalhia Theobald, Linn. Soc. Lon- 
don, Trans., (2) Zool., 15: 89-90. Type 
species: Pseudoficalbia pandani Theobald, 
1912; Mahe, Seychelles (the first of two 
new species, two other species men- 
tioned, fide Howard, Dyar, and Knab, 
Mosq. North, Central Amer. and West 
Indies 4: 899. 1917). 
About 130 valid species of Uranotaenia are 
recognized at the present time, largely from 
the Old World tropics but with representa- 
tives in all zoogeographical regions. The 
group is so distinctly characterized in the 
adult stage that only three additional generic 
names have been proposed for this consider- 
able assemblage of species. The individual 
species offer such striking differences in or- 
namentation and special modifications that 
only about 35 additional trivial names have 
been proposed which are now considered to 
be synonyms, some of which may have to be 
resurrected in the future. This unusual situa- 
tion is partially due to the neglect of this 
genus by culicidologists as the few workers 
who have studied the group in the tropics 
have found it to be represented by a large 
number of species even in limited areas. It 
appears from the present work that some of 
the extremely widespread species are actually 
complexes of closely related forms. No mono- 
315 
graph of any kind has been published on this 
genus as yet. 
The taxonomic distinctiveness of Uranotae- 
nia in the adult stage has led some workers, 
notably Dyar (1928: 415), to recognize a sep- 
arate tribe for this genus, but more recent 
workers have not followed this action. No 
subgenera have been recognized since Ed- 
wards (1932: 97) synonymized the four gen- 
eric names proposed for this group, although 
he and subsequent authors have used Pseudo- 
ficalhia as a group name for the nonornamented 
species of Uranotaenia. The only attempt to 
divide the genus into natural groups was made 
by Edwards (1941: 43-44) for Ethiopian spe- 
cies and was based on adult characters only. 
Although these groups have many characters 
in common, they are apparently distinct to a 
much greater degree in the larval and pupal 
stages. The presence of extremely different 
types of larvae and pupae in this genus has 
not been appreciated by culicidologists in 
general, and this has led to such statements 
as "Why did Uranotaenia stand still in an 
evolutionary sense while Aedes gave rise to 
the largest and most successful group of sub- 
arctic mosquitoes" (Ross, 1951: 132). There 
appear to be several different evolutionary 
lines in Uranotaenia, some of which have in- 
vaded the same ecological niches, such as 
water in living plants, in dead plant material, 
in tree holes, etc. The immature stages as well 
as the detailed morphology of many such 
forms are unknown at the present. Little can 
be done in the classification of this group 
until these gaps are filled, as such ecological 
situations are notorious for the development 
of parallel structures in unrelated forms. 
In the Solomons there are three distinct 
groups of species, two of which are closely 
related and very distinct from the third. In 
our present state of world knowledge of Ura- 
notaenia it is impossible to determine whether 
or not these groups are of subgeneric rank, 
and rather than add other names to synonymy 
I prefer only to bring out the differences and 
similarities at this time. 
