THE EFFECT OF THE CIBARIAL ARMATURE ON BLOOD MEAL HEMOLYSIS OF 4 ANOPHELINE MOSQUITOS

The cibarial armatures of Anopheles albitarsis Lynch Arribalzaga, A. a quasalis Curry, A. bellator Dyar & Knab and A. homunculus Komp are des cribed for the first time. Ten to 15 minutes after blood feeding, high er levels of blood haemolysis were observed among A. bellator (14.9%) and A. homunculus (14.0%) mosquitoes which possessed type C cibarial a rmatures than among A. albitarsis (3.3%) and A. aquasalis (3.2%) which possessed type B cibarial armatures. In contrast, there were no signi ficant differences among the four species in levels of extra-erythrocy tic haemolysis when measured immediately and after one hour. The blood processing physiology observed for the four anopheline species is dis cussed at the enzymatic, mechanical and taxonomic levels as it relates to innate vector competence.