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Mosquitoes of the Anopheles gambiae complex, namely Anopheles arabiensis (Patton, 1905) and Anopheles gambiae (Giles, 1902) are the major vectors of human malaria in the African continent. The study is mainly conducted to investigate the morphometrics of members of An. gambiae complex in Republic of Southern Sudan. A morphometric multivariate analysis was carried out to investigate the morphological variations among sympatric populations of An. arabiensis and An. gambiae and to assess the degree of discrimination of the two fresh water species. Members of the An. gambiae complex were collected by hand capture from Wau town, Republic of Southern Sudan during the rainy season of 2010. Sixty nine morphometric characters were examined. A discriminant function analysis correctly identified An. arabiensis and An. gambiae to a confidence level reaching 85.2%. The best discriminating characters (in a decreasing order) selected by the analysis were: sector pale spot, tarsomere 4 of the fore leg, pre-sector pale spot, tarsomere 5 of the hind leg and tarsus of the fore leg. This morphometric method showed that females An. arabiensis and An. gambiae were not significantly different in the body size measurements. The morphometric analysis revealed the existence of a considerable degree of differentiation for some metric morphological characters among the females An. arabiensis and An. gambiae . |
