Checklist of the mosquito species from four Sicilian Islands: Lampedusa, Linosa, Ustica and Pantelleria


Submitted: 16 March 2020
Accepted: 2 July 2020
Published: 30 November 2020
Abstract Views: 1335
PDF: 412
HTML: 93
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Authors

  • L. Toma Infectious Diseases Department, Vector-borne Diseases Unit, National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy.
  • F. Severini Infectious Diseases Department, Vector-borne Diseases Unit, National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy.
  • R. Romi Amateur Entomologist, Rome, Italy.
  • M. Goffredo Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell’Abruzzo e del Molise ‘G. Caporale’, Teramo, Italy.
  • A. Torina Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Sicilia ‘A. Mirri’, Palermo, Italy.
  • M. Di Luca Infectious Diseases Department, Vector-borne Diseases Unit, National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy.

The present study reports the results of the first survey of mosquito species in four of the minor Sicilian Islands, namely Lampedusa, Linosa, Pantelleria and Ustica. These surveys were carried out during field activities aimed at recording the occurrence of Aedes albopictus, now reported in all these territories. Adult mosquitoes were collected by traps or by handheld electric aspirators. Larval collections were performed using dippers and droppers. Samples were morphologically identified and molecular investigations were carried out when needed. A total of 6 species were found, namely Aedes (Stegomyia) albopictus, Culex (Culex) pipiens, Culex (Culex) laticinctus, Aedes (Ochlerotatus) mariae, Aedes (Ochlerotatus) zammitii, and Culiseta (Allotheobaldia) longiareolata, the first 2 of which are already a known health concern. This checklist of mosquito species shows the widespread occurrence of Culex laticinctus whose distribution in Italy has still not been thoroughly investigated, whose ecology is poorly known and whose competence as a vector of pathogens is unknown. In Pantelleria, we found larvae of an Aedes species worthy of further investigation.


Becker N., Petrić D., Zgomba M., Boase C., Madon M., Dahl C., Kaiser A., 2010 - Mosquitoes and their Control. Second Edition, Springer, Heidelberg, Germany, 577 pp.

Campbell G.L., Marfin A.A., Lanciotti R.S., Gubler D.J., 2002 - West Nile virus. - Lancet Infect. Dis. 2: 519-529. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1473-3099(02)00368-7.

Coluzzi M., Sabatini A., Bullini L., Ramsdale C., 1974 - Nuovi dati sulla distribuzione delle specie del complesso mariae del genere Aedes. - Riv. Parassitol. 35(4): 321-330.

D’Alessandro G., Saccà G. 1967 - Anopheles (Myzomyia) sergentii Theobald nell’isola di Pantelleria e sua probabile implicazione nella trasmissione di alcuni casi di malaria. - Parassitologia 9: 69-72.

Di Luca M., Toma L., Severini F., Boccolini D., D’Avola S., Todaro D., Stancanelli A., Antoci F., La Russa F., Casano S., Sotera S.D., Carraffa E., Versteirt V., Schaffner F., Romi R., Torina A., 2017 - First record of the invasive mosquito species Aedes (Stegomyia) albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae) on the southernmost Mediterranean islands of Italy and Europe. - Parasit. Vectors. 10: 543. https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/141624/

Gatt P., Deeming J.C., Schaffner F., 2009 - First record of Aedes (Stegomyia) albopictus (Skuse) (Diptera:Culicidae) in Malta. - Eur. Mosq. Bull. 27: 56-64. https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/23672/

Gutsevich A.V., Monchadskii A.S., Shtakel’berg A.A., 1974 - Fauna of the USSR. Diptera – Mosquitoes, Family Culicidae. Israel Program for Scientific Translations. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 3(4), 408 pp.

Mancini G., Montarsi F., Calzolari M., Capelli G., Dottori M., Ravagnan S., Lelli D., Chiari M., Santilli A., Quaglia M., Federici V., Monaco F., Goffredo M., Savini G., 2017 - Mosquito species involved in the circulation of West Nile and Usutu viruses in Italy. - Vet. Ital. 53(2): 97-110. https://www.izs.it/vet_italiana/2017/53_2/VetIt_114_933_4764_2.pdf

O’Meara G.F., Gettman A.D., Evans L.F., Scheel F.D., 1992 - Invasion of cemeteries in Florida by Aedes albopictus. - J Am Mosq Control Assoc. 1992 Mar;8(1):1-10. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1583479/

Schaffner F., Gatt P., Mall S., Maroli M., Spiteri G., Melillo T., Zeller H., 2010 - Mosquitoes in Malta: preliminary entomological investigation and risk assessment for vector-borne diseases (Diptera: Culicidae). - Bull. Entomol. Soc. Malta. 3: 41-54. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/46601853.pdf

Romi R., Sabatinelli G., Pontuale G., 1997 - Le zanzare italiane: generalità e identificazione degli stadi preimaginali (Diptera, Culicidae). Fragmenta Entomol. 29 (Suppl.): 1-141. http://www.fragmentaentomol.org/index.php/fragmenta/article/download/92/84/

Schaffner F., Angel G., Geoffroy B., Hervy J.P., Rhaiem A., Brunhes J., 2001 - The mosquitoes of Europe. An identification and training programme, IRD Éditions & EID Méditerrannée, Montpellier (CD-ROM).

Senevet G., Andarelli L. 1959 - Les moustiques de l’Afrique du nord et du bassin mediterranéen: le genre Culex, Uranotaenia, Theobaldia, Orthopodomyia, et Mansonia. Encyclopédie entomologique, Paul Lechevalier, Paris, 384 pp.

Severini F., Toma L., Di Luca M., Romi R., 2009 - Le zanzare italiane: generalità e identificazione degli adulti (Diptera: Culicidae). - Fragmenta Entomol. 41: 213-372. https://doi.org/10.4081/fe.2009.92

Stojanovich C.J., Scott H.G., 1997 - Mosquitoes of the Italian biogeographic area which includes the Republic of Malta, the French Island of Corsica and all Italy except the Far-Northern Provinces. Stojanovich & Scott, USA, 200 pp.

Toma L., Toma F., Pampiglione G., Goffredo M., Severini F., Di Luca M., 2017 - First record of Aedes albopictus (Skuse, 1894) (Diptera; Culicidae) from three islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea (Italy). - J.E.M.C.A. 35: 25-28. http://www.e-m-b.org/node/1157

Vezzani D., 2007 - Review: Artificial container-breeding mosquitoes and cemeteries: a perfect match. - Trop. Med. Int. Health. 12(2): 299-313. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-3156.2006.01781.x

Wilkerson R.C., Linton Y.-M., Fonseca D., Schultz T.R., Price D.C., Strickman D.A., 2015 - Making Mosquito Taxonomy Useful: A Stable Classification of Tribe Aedini that Balances Utility with Current Knowledge of Evolutionary Relationships. – PLOS ONE. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0133602

L. Toma, Infectious Diseases Department, Vector-borne Diseases Unit, National Institute of Health, Rome

researcher PhD

Toma, L., Severini, F., Romi, R., Goffredo, M., Torina, A., & Di Luca, M. (2020). Checklist of the mosquito species from four Sicilian Islands: Lampedusa, Linosa, Ustica and Pantelleria. Journal of Entomological and Acarological Research, 52(1). https://doi.org/10.4081/jear.2020.8968

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Citations