THE CLASSIFICATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF 
THE ANOPHELES MOSQUITOES OF MEXICO, 
CENTRAL AMERICA, AND THE 
WEST INDIES 
By W. H. W. KOMP 
UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, GORGAS MEMORIAL LABORATORY, PANAMA CITY, R. P. 
The systematist finds in his material 
“certain regular correlations, associations 
of a limited number of characters that oc¬ 
cur regularly in individuals, amid a very 
great amount of individual variation. It is 
this correlation that constitutes the basis of 
species-diagnosis” (Robson, G. C. and 
Richards, 0. W. 1936). Species, the unit 
of classification, is a concept, existing only 
in the mind of the taxonomist, and not cor¬ 
responding to any sharp separation recog¬ 
nizable in nature. Minor variations are 
present which must be recognized and given 
a place in the scheme of classification. 
These minor variations, below the rank of 
what are usually considered species, are 
called varieties, subspecies, or races. The 
usual connotation of variety is geographi¬ 
cal; that of race is physiological, although 
here no uniformity of usage exists. 
For the purposes of this paper, it seems 
advisable to adopt the following definitions: 
A taxonomic species is an assemblage of 
individuals in which certain regular asso¬ 
ciations of structural or colorational char¬ 
acters are found. In the Anophelini, the 
most useful structural characters are found 
in the male sexual organs, the terminalia. 
A variety is a subdivision of a species oc¬ 
curring in one part of the range of the 
species, and set off from it by slight but 
constant differences in color-markings, but 
showing no constant differences in the 
structure of the male sexual organs. A race 
is a purely physiological concept, based 
upon differences in behavior, which may or 
may not be reflected in differences in struc¬ 
ture. As instances of these categories, the 
concept of a species may be represented by 
A. albimanus, which agrees throughout its 
range in possessing certain association of 
characters in all its stages, so that it can be 
recognized by the trained entomologist by 
examination of the larvae and the male 
terminalia. The concept of a variety may 
be represented by C. C. Hoffmann’s two 
forms of A. albimanus, A. bisignatus and 
A. trisignatus, found in southern Mexico 
(Hoffmann 1938a); these forms have male 
terminalia indistinguishable from those of 
A. albimanus as found elsewhere, but have 
extra black bands on the hind tarsal seg¬ 
ments. The physiological race is exempli¬ 
fied by the two kinds of A. albimanus found 
respectively in Panama and in Venezuela. 
These are indistinguishable from color or 
structural characters, so far as now known, 
but the Panama race will mate in small 
cages, while Gabaldon tells me he has failed 
to obtain mating under such conditions. 
Something must be said concerning the 
recent use of egg-characters in taxonomy. 
The classic example is of course the separa¬ 
tion of the European A. maculipennis into 
six or more forms on the basis of differences 
in the eggs. Under the classification indi¬ 
cated above, all these forms of A. macu¬ 
lipennis are included in a single taxonomic 
species; opinion is at present divided as to 
whether these six forms shall be considered 
varieties or races. Apart from the eggs, 
apparently only two morphological differ¬ 
ences have been found to separate these 
forms: variations in the form of a hair of 
the larva and in the shape of the spine on 
the claspette lobes of the male terminalia; 
but Hackett states that these differences are 
so small and overlap so much that they are 
“not sufficient in themselves for the classi¬ 
fication of any given specimen.” So by 
