Identification of the sibling species of the Anopheles maculipennis complex by heteroduplex analysis

The group of anopheline mosquitoes referred to as 'Anopheles maculipennis c omplex' includes the most important malaria vectors of the Palearctic Weste rn region. The species belonging to this complex, however, are difficult or impossible to distinguish by morphological characters. To differentiate si bling palearctic species belonging to this complex, interspecific differenc es in the ITS2 sequences were used to set up a rapid and sensitive diagnost ic tool based on heteroduplex analysis. The relative heteroduplex mobility allowed the following seven species to be readily distinguished: An. atropa rvus, An. labranchiae, An. maculipennis s.s., An. martinius, An melanoon, A n. messeae and An. sacharovi.