Morphological and molecular identification of Anopheles (Diptera: Culicidae) mosquitoes in Surkhandarya region, Uzbekistan

Mosquitoes of the genus <em>Anopheles </em>Meigen, 1818 are representatives of blood-sucking insects from the family Culicidae. Some representatives of this genus carry malaria and distribute through humans. In Uzbekistan six species of malaria distributors have been recorded so far. Thus, investigating such kind of malaria distributors and determining the exact number of <em>Anopheles </em>species in order to prevent malaria epidemy in the republic is crucial. In this study we tried to study the species composition and ecology of mosquitoes of the genus <em>Anopheles </em>in Surkhandarya region and described the species characteristics of mosquitoes, both in terms of morphological and molecular genetic features. To reach our aim we collected samples of the genus <em>Anopheles </em>and conducted morphological, molecular-genetic and phylogenetic studies. According to results in the sampled collections of <em>Anopheles </em>mosquitoes, the ratio of males and females was 1:1. The nucleotide sequence data from the mtDNA of our sampled mosquitos were 99.8-100% similar with those of <em>An. hyrcanus</em> Pallas, 1771; <em>An. pulcherrimus</em> Theobald, 1902 and <em>An. superpictus</em> Grassi, 1899 derived from Genbank. Also, molecular genetic studies of adult mosquitoes from Surkhandarya region confirmed the data of their identification as identified by morphological characters. The sequences of their nucleotides were submitted to the database of the Genbank (NCBI). As a result of morphological studies of imago mosquitoes, it was found that 4 species of mosquitoes of the genus <em>Anopheles </em>occur in natural landscapes of Surkhandarya region: <em>An. claviger</em> Meigen, 1804; <em>An. hyrcanus</em>,<em> An. pulcherrimus </em>and <em>An. superpictus</em>.

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