The

subgenus In biology, a subgenus (plural: subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between t ...

''Kerteszia'' are

Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bioge ...

anopheline mosquitoes originally described in 1905 by Frederick V. Theobald as

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

''Kertészia'' with ''Kertészia boliviensis'' as the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

.Theobald, F. V. 1905. A catalogue of the Culicidae in the Hungarian National Museum with descriptions of new genera and species. ''Ann. Mus. Nat. Hungarici'', 3: 61-119; 66; http://www.mosquitocatalog.org/files/pdfs/131700-25.PDF, accessed 29 Feb 2016.Thomas J. Zavortink. 1973. Mosquito Studies (Diptera, Culicidae) XXIX. A Review of the Subgenus ''Kerteszia'' of ''Anopheles''. ''Contrib. Amer. Ent. Inst.'', 9(3): 1-54; http://www.mosquitocatalog.org/files/pdfs/144600-7.pdf.

Bionomics

Subgenus ''Kerteszia'' immatures develop primarily in the water in

bromeliad The Bromeliaceae (the bromeliads) are a family of monocot flowering plants of about 80 genera and 3700 known species, native mainly to the tropical Americas, with several species found in the American subtropics and one in tropical west Africa, ...

s, and less often in

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

.W. H. W. Komp. 1937. The Species of the Subgenus ''Kerteszia'' of ''Anopheles'' (Diptera, Culicidae). ''Annals of the Entomological Society of America'', XXX: 492-529; http://www.mosquitocatalog.org/files/pdfs/071100-9.pdf, accessed 29 Feb 2016. They are distributed southward from the

State of Veracruz Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...

in Mexico through Central America and Atlantic South America, along the coast to

Misiones Province Misiones (, ''Missions'') is one of the 23 provinces of Argentina, located in the northeastern corner of the country in the Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by Paraguay to the northwest, Brazil to the north, east and south, and Corrientes ...

in Argentina and

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, , ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative_units_of_Brazil#List, fifth-most-populous state and the List of Brazilian st ...

in Brazil, and on the Pacific coast of South America to

El Oro Province El Oro (; ''oro'' = gold) is the southernmost of Ecuador's coastal provinces. It was named for its historically important gold production. Today it is one of the world's major exporters of bananas. The capital is Machala. History The area was ...

, Ecuador. The subgenus is absent from the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

islands except

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

and from most of the

Amazon basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivi ...

in South America.

Medical Importance

Several species of this subgenus are important primary

vector Vector most often refers to: *Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction *Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematic ...

s of human

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...

s, and other species are suspected vectors.

Species

Species listed by the

Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit The Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit ("WRBU") is a US Army organization that conducts laboratory and field research on the systematics of medically important arthropods in support of epidemiological investigations and disease prevention and contr ...

:Thomas V. Gaffigan, Richard C. Wilkerson, James E. Pecor, Judith A. Stoffer and Thomas Anderson. 2016. "Culicidae » Anophelinae » Null » Anopheles » Subgenus Kerteszia Theobald" in ''Systematic Catalog of Culicidae'',

References

Anopheles Insect vectors of human pathogens Taxa named by Frederick Vincent Theobald Insect subgenera {{Culicidae-stub