DISTRIBUTION AND ECOLOGY OF THE ANOPH¬ 
ELES MOSQUITOES OF THE 
CARIBBEAN REGION 
By L. E. ROZEBOOM 
DIVISION OF MEDICAL ENTOMOLOGY, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF HYGIENE AND 
PUBLIC HEALTH, BALTIMORE, MD. 
The biological characteristics that deter¬ 
mine whether an Anopheles mosquito is 
harmless or a dangerous malaria vector are 
its susceptibility to malaria parasites, blood 
preferences, attraction to human habita¬ 
tions, range of flight, longevity, and abun¬ 
dance. To be abundant enough to be 
dangerous, usually a wide range of breed¬ 
ing places must be available to the mos¬ 
quito ; ordinarily those species that are 
restricted to a special type of water are too 
scarce to play an important role in malaria 
transmission. With our present knowledge 
it is impossible to outline the character¬ 
istics that make various types of water 
favorable or unfavorable as breeding places 
for the Caribbean Anophelines. Beattie 
(1932) made a study of the physico-chemi¬ 
cal factors of A. tarsimaculatus (- aqua- 
salisl) breeding waters in Trinidad, but 
could find no correlation between larval 
incidence and pH, carbon dioxide, organic 
nitrogen, dissolved oxygen, nitrites, ni¬ 
trates, or phosphates, although ammonia 
nitrogen repelled the ovipositing females. 
In general, the Caribbean anophelines can 
be divided into two groups: those that re¬ 
quire sunlight for breeding, and those that 
require shade. Some of the former are apt 
to be more closely associated with man, as 
they are often abundant in cleared areas 
near human habitations; the latter are 
typically forest species. Most species are 
found in fresh water, one prefers brackish 
water, while others will breed in both fresh 
and brackish water. Some species are 
rather closely associated with certain kinds 
of aquatic vegetation, and often this associ¬ 
ation seems to be more than a mere concen¬ 
tration of larvae in protected places. 
Twenty-nine species of anophelines have 
been found in the Caribbean region, from 
Panama to the southern border of the 
United States. Several of them really be¬ 
long to the temperate fauna, and to avoid 
duplication, little mention will be made of 
them in this paper. 
Notes on the Species 
Chagasia bathanus was described by Dyar 
from specimens collected near Gatun, Canal 
Zone, by Mr. C. H. Bath (Curry 1928; Dyar 
1928). It has been recorded from western 
Panama (Komp 1929a), Costa Rica (Kumm, 
Komp and Ruiz 1940), British Honduras 
(Kumm 1940b), and Venezuela (Gabaldon, 
Herrera and Perez-Vivas 1940). Martini 
(1935) says that a single specimen was cap¬ 
tured by Dampf in the State of Chiapas, 
Mexico. The larvae prefer shaded water 
along the edges of streams; they have a 
predilection for shady pools in the streams 
(Kumm, Komp and Ruiz 1940), but are also 
found in running water. The species may 
be abundant in certain restricted localities, 
but it is a rare mosquito. Adult females 
have been captured while they were feeding 
on horses (Kumm, Komp and Ruiz 1940), 
but apparently they seldom feed on man. 
A. ( Stethomyia) kompi is rather rare, 
but has been recorded from Brazil (Shan¬ 
non 1933), Venezuela (Gabaldon 1939a), 
Panama (Curry 1931b; Edwards 1930), 
and Costo Rica (Kumm, Komp and Ruiz 
1940). Komp (1940b) states that in Panama 
the larvae are found in stream pools at the 
end of the rainy season, and are rarely 
abundant. The adults will bite man. 
A. albimanus, the most important malaria 
vector of the Caribbean region, is dis- 
