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30 January 2024 Courtship diversity and similarity in the mosquito genus Wyeomyia (Culicidae, Sabethini)
Woodbridge A. Foster, Glené Mynhardt, Madeline McHugh, Thomas J. Zavortink
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Abstract

The mating behavior of five species in the mosquito genus Wyeomyia from locations in Panama, Venezuela, and the U.S.A. were video recorded in the laboratory. They represent at least four putative subgenera. There were four objectives: to determine whether they engage in courtship on a substrate, whether genital courtship is involved, how their courtships differ from other courting members of the tribe Sabethini, and how divergent the mating behaviors of these Wyeomyia species are from each other. Their mating behaviors were remarkably similar in most respects. They all mated on either vertical sticks or vertical flat surfaces, the males grasped the costal margin of the wing of the female before inverting beneath her, and the couples passed through a superficial-coupling phase, interpreted as part of genital courtship. The full-copulation phase that followed superficial coupling is presumed to allow insemination, as it does in other sabethine species studied. These Wyeomyia species differed from one another in various positions and movements of the antennae, proboscis, wings, legs, abdomen, and genitalia. Wy. arthrostigma, a species studied previously, is an outlier mainly because of its bizarre mating position. We conclude that these representatives of the genus Wyeomyia have diverged from the Sabethes spp. described so far, but they form a behaviorally coherent group.

Woodbridge A. Foster, Glené Mynhardt, Madeline McHugh, and Thomas J. Zavortink "Courtship diversity and similarity in the mosquito genus Wyeomyia (Culicidae, Sabethini)," Journal of Vector Ecology 49(1), 105-113, (30 January 2024). https://doi.org/10.52707/1081-1710-49.1.105
Received: 25 September 2023; Accepted: 5 January 2024; Published: 30 January 2024
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KEYWORDS
courtship
mating
mating behavior
mosquito
Sabethini
Wyeomyia
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