Gender beyond male and female: Occurrence of a gynandromorph in the Japanese encephalitis vector Culex sitiens (Diptera: Culicidae)

Low VL; Wong ML; Liew JWK; Pramasivan S; Jeyaprakasam NK; Vythilingam I

doi:10.1016/j.actatropica.2019.105207

Gender beyond male and female: Occurrence of a gynandromorph in the Japanese encephalitis vector Culex sitiens (Diptera: Culicidae)

Low VL ¹ , Wong ML ² , Liew JWK ³ , Pramasivan S ³ , Jeyaprakasam NK ³ , Vythilingam I ³

Affiliations

¹ Tropical Infectious Diseases Research and Education Centre (TIDREC), University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Electronic address: vanlun_low@um.edu.my
² Tropical Infectious Diseases Research and Education Centre (TIDREC), University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
³ Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Acta Trop, 2020 Jan;201:105207.

PMID: 31586449 DOI: 10.1016/j.actatropica.2019.105207

Abstract

A gynandromorph of Culex sitiens Wiedemann (Diptera: Culicidae) was attracted to a human during a mosquito surveillance programme conducted in Kuala Lipis, Pahang, Malaysia on July 20, 2019. Gynandromorphism was observed in antennae, maxillary palps, legs and wings of the specimen, with distinct male characters on the left and female characters on the right, though the left maxillary palp is slightly shorter than the proboscis of a typical male. The abdomen, however, displays well-developed male genitalia. This study represents the first report of oblique gynandromorphism in Cx. sitiens, one of the vectors of Japanese encephalitis in Asia.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.