A revision of the Anopheles aitkenii group in Malaya and Borneo

The Anopheles aitkenii species group (Reid and Knight, 1961) is composed of forest forms with small unornamented brown adults, the females of which are usually indistinguish-able. The various forms that have been recognized are based on larval differences and, to a lesser extent, on differences in the male genitalia. It has been evident for some time that these forms are probably species and that the ‘ “ complex ”... is badly in need of new study ’ (Stone, Knight and Starcke, 1959). There has, however, been little incentive to make such a study, as the group is not known to be involved in disease transmission and adults are seldom encountered. Indeed, we have no idea what are the normal hosts of this group. But current interest in vertebrate blood parasites, arising largely from the discovery that some kinds of simian malaria and filariasis are possible or actual zoonoses (Eyles et al., 1964; Edeson and Wilson, 1964) may lead us to discover what animals the species of the aitkenii group usually bite and what parasites they transmit. The writer has now been obliged to make a short study of the group as part of the revisional work for a book on the anophelines of Malaya and Borneo. There are still many gaps in our knowledge and other forms probably remain to be discovered, but it is clear tha