Anopheles
For a full description, see section Systematics and the main article: Taxonomy of Anopheles
Some important species are:
Anopheles (/əˈnɒfɪliːz/[1]) is a genus of mosquito first described and named by J. W. Meigen in 1818.[2] About 460 species are recognised; while over 100 can transmit human malaria, only 30–40 commonly transmit parasites of the genus Plasmodium, which cause malaria in humans in endemic areas. Anopheles gambiae is one of the best known, because of its predominant role in the transmission of the most dangerous malaria parasite species (to humans) – Plasmodium falciparum.
The name comes from the Ancient Greek word ἀνωφελής anōphelḗs 'useless', derived from ἀν- an-, 'not', 'un-' and ὄφελος óphelos 'profit'.[3][1]
Mosquitoes in other genera (Aedes, Culex, Culiseta, Haemagogus, and Ochlerotatus) can also serve as vectors of disease agents, but not human malaria.
The ancestors of Drosophila and the mosquitoes diverged 260 million years ago.[4] The culicine and Anopheles clades of mosquitoes diverged between 120 million years ago and 150 million years ago.[4][5] The Old and New World Anopheles species subsequently diverged between 80 million years ago and 95 million years ago.[4][5] Anopheles darlingi diverged from the African and Asian malaria vectors ~100 million years ago.[6] The Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles funestus clades diverged between 80 million years ago and 36 million years ago. A molecular study of several genes in seven species has provided additional support for an expansion of this genus during the Cretaceous period.[7]
The Anopheles genome, at 230–284 million base pairs (Mbp), is comparable in size to that of Drosophila, but considerably smaller than those found in other culicine genomes (528 Mbp–1.9 Gbp). Like most culicine species, the genome is diploid with six chromosomes.
