Orthopodomyia albipes Leicester, 1904 (in Theobald, 1904).
Subfamily Culicinae, tribe Orthopodomyiini. Orthopodomyia is the only genus of tribe Orthopodomyiini. It includes 36 species divided between eight species groups. Genus abbreviation – Or.
Orthopodomyia are beautifully marked mosquitoes with bands and stripes of white, silver or sometimes gold scales. Some are mottled with pale and dark scales. They are readily distinguished from the adults of all other mosquito genera by having tarsomere 1 of the fore- and midlegs longer than the four distal tarsomeres combined, and tarsomere 4 shorter than tarsomere 5. Larvae lack a pecten, the comb is usually uniquely developed with a posterior row of long scales and an anterior row of shorter ones (rarely with one or three rows of scales) and abdominal segment VIII has a large dorsal sclerite (except in Or. alba). See Orthopodomyiini.
The affinities of Orthopodomyia are uncertain. The genus was recovered as the sister of Culiseta + Toxorhynchites in the phylogenetic analysis of Harbach & Kitching (1998) based on morphological data. Edwards (1932) believed that Orthopodomyia is most closely related to Culiseta (as Theobaldia). He noted the occurrence of a pair of thoracic air sacs in larvae that also occur in Culiseta fraseri, and elsewhere only in members of Mansoniini (as genus Mansonia) and Toxorhynchitini (as genus Megarhinus). Phylogenetic relationships of species of the North American Signifera Group based on the ITS2 region of rDNA were investigated by Byrd et al. (2012).
Little is known about the biology of Orthopodomyia species. Larvae occur principally in tree holes, but some species are found in bamboo internodes, the axils of bromeliads and the spathes of Heliconia plants. Most species are also occasionally found in artificial containers. The larvae apparently feed by filtering microorganisms and particulate matter from the water. Adults inhabit forests and appear to be active only after dark. The feeding habits of females are largely unknown, but birds appear to be the primary hosts. Two species in the Oriental Region are known to approach and bite humans.
None of the species of Orthopodomyia are of medical or economic importance to humans.
Each of the species groups of genus Orthopodomyia is largely or entirely restricted to a single zoogeographic region. Most species occur in the Neotropical and Oriental Regions. Two Neotropical species extend their ranges into the USA and Canada, a number of species occur in Madagascar (only three species are known to occur elsewhere in the Afrotropical Region, i.e. Cameroon), and a single species, Or. pulcripalpis, occurs in the Palaearctic Region. No species of the genus occur in Australia.
Barraud, 1934 (southern Asia, species descriptions, bionomics, distributions); Lane, 1953 (Neotropical Region, genus and species descriptions, keys, distributions); Thurman, 1959 (Thailand, taxonomy, genus and species descriptions, distributions); Delfinado, 1966 (Philippines, taxonomy, keys for adults, species descriptions, distributions, bionomics); Zavortink, 1968 (world, taxonomy, genus, species and group descriptions, keys, bionomics, distributions); Zavortink, 1971 (Southeast Asia, genus, group and species descriptions, keys, distributions, bionomics); Belkin et al., 1970 (Jamaica, Or. waverleyi, description, bionomics, distribution); Tanaka et al., 1979 (Japan, Or. anopheloides, genus and species description, distribution, bionomics); Darsie & Ward, 1981, 2005 (North America, keys); Lee et al., 1988 (Australasian Region, taxonomy, literature, bionomics, distributions); Service, 1990 (Afrotropical Region, keys, taxonomy, literature, bionomics, distributions); Brunhes & Hervy, 1995 (Afrotropical Region, taxonomy, genus and species descriptions, keys, bionomics); Rattanarithikul et al., 2007 (Thailand, keys, bionomics); Byrd et al., 2012 (Signifera Group, morphology, rDNA ITS2, phylogeny); Azari-Hamidian et al., 2017 (Iran, Or. Pulcripalpis, notes on systematics of the genus).
albipes (Giles, 1904)
mcgregori (Banks, 1909)