Notes on the holotype of Anopheles marajoara Galvão & Damasceno (Diptera, Culicidae)

Anopheles subgenus Nyssorhynchus is a monophyletic Neotropical group (Sallum et al. 2000, 2002) that currently contains 32 named species (Harbach 2004). The most important vectors of human malaria parasites in Central and South America are members of the subgenus and include An. darlingi Root, 1926, An. albimanus Wiedemann, 1820 and An. marajoara Galvão & Damasceno, 1942 (Conn et al. 2002). Anopheles marajoara belongs to a group of morphologically similar species, the Albitarsis Complex, which also contains An. albitarsis Lynch-Arribálzaga, 1878, An. deaneorum RosaFreitas, 1989 and An. albitarsis “B” of Wilkerson et al. (1995). The An. albitarsis Complex species are largely indistinguishable morphologically with nearly all characters in all stages either identical or overlapping. Anopheles albitarsis s. l. was suspected to contain more than one species by various authors based on epidemiological, behavioral, morphological, cytological, and biochemical evidences (Galvão and Damasceno 1944; Kreutzer et al. 1976; Linthicum 1988; Rosa-Freitas and Deane 1989; Rosa-Freitas et al. 1990; Narang et al. 1993). Wilkerson et al. (1995) using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD-PCR) demonstrated the existence of the above four species. Recently, Lehr et al. (2005) hypothesized a fifth Notes on the holotype of Anopheles marajoara Galvão & Damasceno (Diptera, Culicidae)