Figure
Figure. Female Anopheles stephensi mosquito. Photograph by Jim Gathany, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Public Health Image Library.
In 1901, George Michael James Giles, a lieutenant colonel and physician in the Indian Medical Service, described the Anopheles stephensi mosquito (Figure). He collected the mosquitoes from Ellichpur (currently Amravati district), India, and named the species in honor of John William Watson Stephens, a prominent British parasitologist who first described Plasmodium ovale, one of the human malaria parasites. Morphologically, An. stephensi mosquitoes can be identified by distinctive palpal ornamentation of equal apical and subapical pale bands and speckled appearance, pale and dark scales arranged along the veins of the wings, and dark and speckled pale bands on the hind tarsi.
An. stephensi (family Culicidae, subgenus Cellia) is an urban malaria vector responsible for ≈12% of malaria cases in India annually. After its detection in Africa in 2012, An. stephensi mosquitoes, if not controlled, are projected to put more than 126 million persons at risk for malaria.
