First detection of Nyssorhynchus rondoniensis (Diptera: Culicidae) in southern Venezuela and its infection with Plasmodium falciparum

Ongoing efforts to control vectors and eliminate malaria in the Neotropics are hampered by challenges that include accurate mosquito identification and acquisition of relevant local ecological data. In Bolivar state, southern Venezuela, 88 specimens of a potential malaria vector, Nyssorhynchus rondoniensis, were detected in several villages, identified by COI barcode sequences, and one mosquito was found infected with Plasmodium falciparum by real-time PCR, for an infection rate of 1.14 %. Increasingly, deforestation for a range of anthropogenic activities, especially mining, urbanization, and agriculture, leads to change in anopheline diversity. The main reasons for concern in the detection of an infected specimen of a new potential vector species in the highly modified gold-mining environment of southern Venezuela are its detection in different years, in both rainy and dry seasons, in peridomestic and forest fringe habitat, its anthropophilic behavior, and early and late evening biting times. This mosquito species was recently described for the first time and is only known from Acre and Rondônia states, western Brazil, until now. The most likely explanation for the large geographical gap between southern Venezuela and western Brazil is that Ny. rondoniensis is present but has been misidentified as another morphologically similar species.