Aedes pecuniosus is species 85 for Mozzie monitors
Well we now have an amazing 85 species of mozzie represented on Mozzie Monitors, and it appears that the moth sheet is an untapped source for mozzie records, in particular it seems they collect rarely mosquito species rarely collected with traditional surveillance programs. For those that follow the MozzieMonitors News you may recall the first record of Aedes shehzadae back in February 2021 , you can catch up on the article in 'The conversation' here This mosquito species from Papua New Guinea was lost for 90 years – until a photographer snapped a picture of it in Australia
Or see the original publication in the Journal of Vector Ecology, 47(1) : 133-137
Aedes shehzadae recorded by @johnlenagan Feb 14, 2021 · 10:43 PM Lockhart QLD
well its been just two years and the 'moth sheet' has produced another puzzle, again from Queensland. This time after stumping me and @mozziebites the answer was provided by the very knowledgeable @mozziemike Mike Muller who used their local knowledge to solve this mystery fairly quickly.
This turned out to be a Fantastic observation of the rarely collected Aedes pecuniosus by © Scott W. Gavins, (CC-BY-NC) AKA @scottwgavins at Talegalla Weir QLD 4650, Australia
Full description of the species can be found here 'Description of the Holotypes of Aedes (Finlava) purpureus and &. (Fin.) pecuniosus with a Revalidation of the Latter Species (Diptera: Culicidae) John F. Reinertlf2
A dead ringer for Ae. purpureus because to quote Mike Muller pecuniosus was "resurrected from synonymy with Aedes purpureus in this Reinert paper from 1988 so it won’t be in keys that were mostly prepared before then. It’s only mentioned in the 12 Volume Culicidae of the Australasian Region as a synonym of purpureus . The name pecuniosus is Latin for in the money or well off,' the description by Reinert 1988 is below by https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA510184.pdf
@ospr3y thanks for adding the species as parent taxon for this as Subgenus Molpemyia, along with the other two species in the subgenus.
