The Afrotropical mosquito genus Eretmapodites contains species that exhibit facultative cannibalism in their larval developmental stages.[1][2] The species was first described in 1901 by Frederick Vincent Theobald.[3] The type species is Eretmapodites quinquevittatus Theobald [1][3]
Eretmapodites larvae feed primarily on decaying organic matter, but become cannibalistic when other food becomes scarce, and sometimes even in the presence of abundant other food material.[2]
Larval breeding-places include small collections of water in larger fallen leaves, old tins and bottles, snail shells, plant axils, cut bamboo, and rarely tree holes. Some species seem to breed exclusively in plant axils; the majority are most frequently found in fallen leaves in forest habitat.[2] They are strongly bottom-dwelling, so much so that when the water is poured out of a leaf containing them, most remain on the surface of the leaf until washed off; larvae of species collected in Uganda and Sierra Leone have been observed crawling over the surface of the leaf.[2]
When they become cannibalistic, they are predatory on other mosquito larvae, aquatic larvae of other small Diptera, and aquatic oligochaetes and nematodes.[2] Smaller mosquito larvae are consumed whole, but larger ones have their internal contents sucked out, probably due to the difficulty of masticating their chitinous exoskeletons.[2] Predatory larvae also attack pupae, seizing them by the tail and keeping them under water until they drown. Killed pupae are not eaten immediately, but left intact until partly decomposed and then eaten.[2]
Predatory larvae have a thickened, comb-like modification of a group of the hairs on the medioventral aspect of the mouth brushes resembling those found in the predatory species Lutzia tigripes. After seizing their prey, Eretmapodites larvae hold it between the half-flexed head and the ventral surface of the thorax and consume it rapidly, devouring a large larva in about 10 minutes.[2]
Eretmapodites species have been demonstrated to be laboratory vectors of yellow fever and chikungunya.[4] Viruses isolated from wild-caught Eretmapodites include Rift Valley fever, Semliki forest, Spondweni, Nyando, Okola, Middleburg, Nkolbisson, and Bunyamwera viruses and an undefined viral agent, MTMP 131.[4]
Species listed by the Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit:[5]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link), accessed 21 Feb 2016. The Afrotropical mosquito genus Eretmapodites contains species that exhibit facultative cannibalism in their larval developmental stages. The species was first described in 1901 by Frederick Vincent Theobald. The type species is Eretmapodites quinquevittatus Theobald
