DISTRIBUTION AND ECOLOGY OF CARIBBEAN ANOPHELINES 
105 
that this record is doubtful; A. puncti- 
pennis has never been taken in Jamaica 
since Grabham’s time. Hoffmann (1932) 
speaks of its presence in the littoral zone 
of the Gulf of Mexico and in the “northern 
zone” of Mexico; Martini (1935) gives 
records from Sonora, Tamaulipas (Tam¬ 
pico), and Veracruz (Pueblo Viejo). Hoff¬ 
mann (1937) collected larvae from a shaded 
pool near Ixmiquilpan, in the state of 
Guanajuato, Mexico. 
A. pseudopunctipennis is the most wide¬ 
spread of the New World Anophelini, rang¬ 
ing from Oklahoma and California to Ar¬ 
gentina. Shannon, Davis, and del Ponte 
(1927) show that its distribution coincides 
to a great extent with that of the western 
mountains, and that apparently it is essen¬ 
tially a mountain species, occurring in the 
lowlands only where special conditions per¬ 
mit its existence. According to Hoffmann 
(1932) it inhabits almost all of Mexico be¬ 
tween the eastern and western mountain 
ranges; only areas that are six or seven 
thousand feet above sea level are free from 
it. It extends along the entire Mexican 
Pacific littoral, from California to Guate¬ 
mala, but does not seem to be so abundant 
along the Caribbean coast, although it is 
present in the littoral zone north of Vera¬ 
cruz. South of Veracruz it appears only 
in the winter. It is found in the villages of 
Yucatan. It has been collected in all of the 
Central American countries (Aguilar 1931; 
Barber and Komp 1927; Clark 1926; Gia- 
quinto Mira 1936; Howard, Dyar and Knab 
1917b; Komp 1929b; Kumm, Komp and 
Ruiz 1940; Kumm and Ruiz 1939b; Larde 
Arthes 1921; Martini 1935; Molloy 1932; 
Sutter 1939), and also in Trinidad (Kumm 
1929b) and Grenada (Earle 1936b; Root 
and Andrews 1938). 
The larvae of A. pseudopunctipennis 
require a great deal of sunlight for their 
development, and the preferred breeding 
places are pools and eddies in shallow or 
drying streams, especially those containing 
mats of green algae. In streams the larvae 
can be found not only in such mats of algae, 
but also in shallow, quiet or running water, 
where they cling to leaves or other bits of 
floatage dammed behind rocks or sand bars. 
Other breeding places are seepages, espe¬ 
cially those in dry beds of subterranean 
streams (Hoffmann 1932), ground pools, 
and even artificial water containers such as 
fountains and tanks (Hoffmann 1932). 
Because the preferred breeding places are 
shallow, drying streams, this species is espe¬ 
cially abundant in mountainous areas, and 
at the time of the year when the streams 
are not flushed out by heavy rains. Thus, 
in Panama and in parts of Central Am erica, 
A. pseudopunctipennis is most prevalent 
during the dry season (Clark 1932; Molloy 
1932; Simmons 1939). However, in some 
regions the dry season causes a diminution 
in the number of favorable breeding places, 
so that the numbers of the mosquito de¬ 
crease. In northwestern Argentina the low¬ 
land breeding places disappear during the 
prolonged dry season, and A. pseudopuncti¬ 
pennis must maintain itself during this 
unfavorable period in springs and other 
fresh water collections in the mountains 
(Shannon 1930). Rainfall is the most im¬ 
portant climatic factor in determining 
abundance in the Rimac Valley of Peru, and 
here too the mosquito survives the dry sea¬ 
son by breeding in the restricted fresh 
water collections in the mountains, reestab¬ 
lishing itself in the more numerous lowland 
breeding places after the onset of the rains 
in the higher altitudes results in the forma¬ 
tion of pools along the margins of rivers 
and streams. Here the peak of abundance 
occurs between January and June, the 
rainy season of the highlands (Shannon 
1930). Hoffmann (1938b) calls the typical 
streampools ‘ ‘ winter breeding places of con¬ 
centration” ; this author says that when the 
rains come the larvae are washed from these 
pools and are distributed over wide areas. 
In the Valley of Mexico the species is less 
abundant during the dry winter months; 
during December, January, and February, 
when the temperature drops below the 
freezing point at night, only large larvae 
are found in the breeding places, while 
small larvae appear about the middle of 
March. During the cold weather the males 
