You can see them…Hear them…but just WHO are they?

Anopheles earlei-  

 Commonly know as the MOSQUITO! 

 

It could be argued that EVERY Wisconsinite is familiar with the mosquito, jokes are made about this insect being the state bird.  However, the common person typically lumps mosquitoes into one large group, when in actuality there are multitudes of different species.  One specific species in particular is Anopheles earlei, which was first identified by Luis Vargas in 1943.  This organism can be classified as follows:

 

Domain-Eukarya

 

The organism is a member of this group because it has membrane bound organelles, multiple and linear chromosomes and 80S ribosomes.

 

Kingdom – Animalia

 

Anopheles earlei fits into this kingdom because it is multicellular, heterotropic, and motile.

                       

 

Phylum – Arthropoda

 

This is the correct phylum because the organism has a segmented body, complex jointed exoskeleton, a body separated into head and trunk regions, and paired jointed appendages

                       

 

Class – Insecta

 

Anopheles earlei is put into the class Insecta because of the presence of a head, thorax, abdomen, 3 pairs of legs, 1 or 2 pairs of wings and has separate sexes.

                       

 

Order – Diptera

 

Diptera is the order of true flies.  The distinguishing identifier of this order are a single pair of wings and is where Anopheles earlei belongs.

           

Family - Culicidae

 

The family Culicidae is made up of mosquitoes which have scaled wings, a slender body, long legs, and a pair halteres, which are structures used to maintain stability when flying.

 

Genus – Anopheles

 

There are over 512 species in this genus.  There are several indentifying traits to a mosquito in the genus Anopheles.  Eggs are laid singly on water and larvae have no respiratory siphon.  Some species of Anopheles are malaria vectors.

 

Species – Anopheles earlei

 

The difference in Anopheles earlei in respect to all the other species of Anopheles is that A. earlei's sensory palps are as long as the proboscis, adults rest with abdomens up in air rather than parallel to surface that they are resting on, and the wings of have black and white scales.

 

 

 

 

 

There are about 3,500 species of mosquitoes worldwide and this number is broken down into 41 genera. Anopheles earlei is classified as being a member of the Phylum Arthropoda.  Zooming in a level closer the Class it belongs to is insecta.  Anopheles earlei is closely related to Anopheles occidentalis.  For a long period of time the two were considered the same species.  After careful consideration of the larvae and pupae, the distinction between the two species was made.  This phylogeny is based on morphological data. More specifically, when just looking at Anopheles, the following phylogenetic tree was derived using the rDNA-IT2 sequence.  This phylogeny shows where there are variances in the ribosomal DNA of different species of Anopheles mosquitoes.  As indicated in the tree, A. earlei and A. occidentalis closely related genetically.