Abstract
Females from genus Culicoides are responsible for transmitting important pathogenic agents to animals and humans, including bluetongue, Schmallenberg and African horse sickness viruses and filarids. Species identification in laboratory is usually performed by visualization of their wing pattern and/or using other morphological characters. During the National Entomological Surveillance Program for Bluetongue Disease performed in Portugal (2005–2013) several Culicoides midges were captured near domestic ruminants and, more recently, others were collected in a zoo from the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon near sylvatic animals (2018–2019). From a total of 5,364 analysed specimens, some morphological alterations were observed in 154 specimens (2.9 %) from three different Culicoides spp. (Culicoides obsoletus, Culicoides scoticus and Culicoides dewulfi) on palpi (e.g. defective sensorial pits), antennae (e.g. antennae with defective or fused articles), abdomen (e.g. abdomen with aberrant structures) and spermathecae (e.g. specimens with one and four spermathecae). These types of anatomical alterations probably occur due to genetic or morphogenetic malformation. Also, they are compatible with midge survival and thus maintained in adult specimens. The report of different types of anatomical anomalies is important, since these morphological alterations can lead to incorrect species identification during sample analysis. Thus, this work gives essential information concerning some morphological anomalies that can be observed in Culicoides biting midges, being their first reference in C. scoticus and C. dewulfi species.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the people who have collaborated both directly and indirectly in the Portuguese National Entomological Surveillance Programme (DGV/FMV, 2005–2013) and to Dr Lídia Gomes for laboratorial assistance. Also, thank the financial support to CESAM (UID/AMB/50017/2019), to FCT/MCTES through national funds, and the co-funding by the FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement and Compete 2020.
Funding
This work was financed by national funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., within the scope of the project UIDB/00276/2020. This study was also funded by the project UIDB/CVT/00772/2020 supported by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT). DWR held post-doctoral grant SFRH/BPD/115202/2016.
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DWR and IPdF conceptualized the study. DWR and AMF performed sample analysis and wrote the manuscript. JL, MTR, LC and IPdF co-supervised the study and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Ramilo, D.W., Filipe, A.M., Lucientes, J. et al. Morphological anomalies found in female Culicoides midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae). Biologia 76, 3405–3410 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11756-021-00822-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11756-021-00822-w