Afrotropical Culicoides : a redescription of C. (Avaritia) kanagai Khamala & Kettle, 1971, reared from elephant dung in the Kruger National Park, South Africa

Abstract

The discovery of Culicoides kanagai in South Africa represents a new record for this species. The female is redescribed, and the male is described for the first time. Culicoides (A.) dasyops Clastrier, 1958 is shown to be closely related to it but C. (A.) alticola is only superficially related. Short notes on the larval habitat of C. kanagai, the dung of the African elephant, Loxodonta africana, are given. The dung of both the white rhinoceros, Ceratotherium simum, and the black rhinoceros, Diceros bicornis, is considered to be a possible alternative site for the immatures of C. kanagai.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 600dpi. Adobe Acrobat XI Pro was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format.lmchunu2014mn201