Mosquitoes (Insecta: Diptera: Culicidae) of the Florida Keys, Florida, United States of America

: A list of the Culicidae collected in the Florida Keys is presented. Mosquito records were obtained from the scientific literature and from collections made by mosquito control personnel. Forty-eight species or species groups are known from the Florida Keys.


Early Twentieth Century
During the early years of the Twentieth Century, the 1900s to the 1930s, very little work was done on the mosquitoes of the Florida Keys. A few species were reported but there was no sustained effort to record the fauna. The first published records of mosquitoes from the Florida Keys were in Coquillett's description of Culex nanus (Coquillett 1903). Coquillett described his new species based on 10 specimens, four collected in August 1901 in Key West by August Busck, and six others collected 1 to 3 April 1903 by E.A. Schwarz. Culex nanus is now regarded as a synonym of Psorophora pygmaea (Theobald) (Dyar and Knab 1906). A year later, in 1904A year later, in , Gardner (1904 reported the presence of Anopheles albimanus Wiedemann in Key West (as An. argyritarsis albipes Theobald, see Rozeboom and Gabaldón (1941) for discussion of synonymy). Dyar and Knab (1906) described Anopheles atropos from the "Florida Keys"; they did not specify a locality. Johnson (1913), in his treatment of the Diptera of Florida, listed eight mosquito species in the Florida Keys, viz., Anopheles albimanus, An. atropos, Psorophora ciliata (as Psorophora ciliatus [sic]), Psorophora pygmaea (as Janthinosoma pygmaea), Aedes aegypti (as Stegomyia calopus, see Dyar 1920), Aedes taeniorhynchus (as Aedes niger), Culex quinquefasciatus, and Culex bahamensis (as Culex corniger). The name "Psorophora ciliatus" is most likely a typographic error; nowhere else has this species been given that epithet. Since its description by Fabricius, it has always been "ciliata".
In 1915 Johnson (1913), and Howard et al. (1915;1917), and reported a new record of Ae. sollicitans from Ramrod Key. Two years later Moznette (1924) reported the presence of Ae. taeniorhynchus on Bamboo Key. Toward the end of the 1930s, previously reported records of mosquitoes from the Florida Keys were included in a review of the distribution of An. albimanus (King 1937) and a handbook for identification of mosquitoes of the southeastern United States (King et al. 1939). At the end of the decade, Fisk (1939) reported An. atropos and Cx. bahamensis from the island of Key West. King and Bradley (1941) reviewed the distribution of Anopheles species in the United States, citing earlier records of An. albimanus and An. atropos in the Florida Keys.

Second World War
The outbreak of the Second World War stimulated research on mosquitoes throughout the world. King et al. (1942) updated their handbook of mosquitoes of the southeastern United States; in this revision they included new records of Cx. bahamensis from Elliott Key. A number of new records were reported from the Florida Keys during this period. Several species were described from material collected in the Florida Keys, as well. Roth and Young (1944) reported a new species record, Cx. atratus, from the Florida Keys. Wirth (1945) reported Ae. taeniorhynchus from Key Largo. In this same paper he also reported Cx. (Melanoconion) elevator Dyar and Knab from Key Largo. Pratt and Seabrook (1952), however, determined that these specimens actually were Cx. (Mel.) iolambdis Dyar. Staebler and Buren (1946) Pritchard et al. (1947) were actually Ae. scapularis (Rondani). Furthermore, Bickley (1984) reported that Ps. confinnis did not occur in the southeastern United States, and that the proper identity of this Psorophora species was Ps. columbiae Dyar and Knab.
Anopheles quadrimaculatus Say had not been reported from the Florida Keys during any of the prior mosquito surveys, although it had been collected from the near adjacent mainland (Thurman 1948). In 1948, Basham and Haeger (1948 reported the collection of small numbers of An. quadrimaculatus from Big Pine Key, Key Largo, and Plantation Key. Reinert et al. (1997) eventually determined that the nominal species An. quadrimaculatus was a complex of five morphologically similar species. They did not assign the records of Basham and Haeger to any of the five species described in their paper. Pritchard et al. (1947) reported collecting an undescribed Culex species during their survey of the mosquitoes of the Florida Keys. Basham (1948) described a new species of Culex (Melanoconion), Cx. (Mel.) mulrennani, from material collected on Big Pine, Cudjoe, and Ramrod Keys; this was the undescribed species reported previously by Pritchard et al (1947).

Post World War Two
The decades of the 1950s and 1960s saw very little work on the mosquitoes of the Florida Keys. Branch et al. (1958) collected Mansonia titillans (Walker) from Vaca Key, and An. albimanus from several islands. These authors also reported Ae. (Aedemorphus) vexans (Meigen) and Ma. indubitans (Dyar and Shannon) from Monroe County. No island was specified, and these records most likely refer to the mainland portion of Monroe County. In their description of Ma. dyari, Belkin et al. (1970) stated that all records of Ma. indubitans from Florida and elsewhere in the southeastern United States were likely Ma. dyari. Moreover, Branch et al. (1958) reported Cx. opisthopus from the mainland of Monroe County. Stone and Hair (1968) described Cx. cedecei from Florida and stated that all records of Cx. opisthopus in the United States correctly were Cx. cedecei. In 1960, King et al. (1960) again updated their manual of mosquitoes of the southeastern United States.

Late Twentieth Century and Twenty-First Century
Beginning in the late 1990s and continuing until the present, the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District has surveyed the Florida Keys and has reported numerous new distribution records within the island chain. Three species new to the fauna of the United States were recognized based entirely or in part on specimens collected in the Florida Keys. Other species that had not been collected for years were recorded once again from the Florida Keys. Hribar (1999) collected An. albimanus from Long Key and No Name Key. Hribar (2001) made the first report of Cx. peccator Dyar and Knab from Monroe County, on Big Pine Key. In that same paper Ps. johnstonii was reported from Summerland Key for the first time.  reported several mosquito species from state