Anopheles
Guides
Anopheles crucians
Anopheles crucians is a mosquito species inhabiting shaded aquatic environments with acidic water, particularly cypress swamps. It breeds in semipermanent and permanent pools, ponds, lakes, and swamps. The species is a documented host for parasitic water mites (Arrenurus spp.), with males showing significantly higher parasitism rates due to surface water contact during swarming behavior. It has been implicated as a potential malaria vector, with historical research documenting Plasmodium falciparum infection in 75% of examined individuals.
Anopheles earlei
Anopheles earlei is a small mosquito species distributed throughout North America. Its larvae develop in cold, clear water in ponds and other small water bodies containing vegetation. Adults feed on vertebrate blood including cattle, white-tailed deer, humans, snowshoe hares, and dogs. The species is among the less abundant Anopheles species in surveyed regions of the northern United States.
Anopheles franciscanus
Anopheles franciscanus is a mosquito species in the family Culicidae, first described by McCracken in 1904. The species has been documented in southern California and is part of the Anopheles genus, which includes mosquitoes capable of transmitting malaria parasites. Seven subspecies have been described, ranging across Middle America and North America.
Anopheles perplexens
Anopheles perplexens is a native North American mosquito species in the genus Anopheles, first described by Ludlow in 1907. It was documented in Charlotte County, Florida in 2021 during routine public health surveillance, with only a single specimen confirmed to date. As an Anopheles species, it belongs to the group of mosquitoes capable of transmitting Plasmodium parasites, though specific vector competence for this species has not been established. The species was identified through external morphology and confirmed via COI gene sequencing.
Anopheles walkeri
Walker's Anopheles
Anopheles walkeri is a North American mosquito species found predominantly throughout the Mississippi River Valley, ranging north to southern Quebec, Canada. It is a freshwater swamp specialist whose eggs lack desiccation resistance, restricting it to permanently wet habitats. The species exhibits distinctive nocturnal activity patterns, with peak blood-feeding occurring late at night. A. walkeri has a multivoltine life cycle with specialized overwintering eggs that have enlarged dorsal floats, allowing it to complete one full larval generation before hibernating adults of other species become active. Despite occasional detection of human malaria parasites in southern U.S. specimens, it is considered an unlikely disease vector due to habitat preferences and low virus detection rates.