Aedes pertinax, A Lost and Found New Species Record for Monroe County, Florida.

ABSTRACT

Aedes pertinax, a little-studied tropical mosquito that has found its way into the USA, has recently been discovered to have existed in the Florida Keys for almost 25 years. A 2021 collection of Ae. pertinax adult females in Key Largo, FL, sparked a retrospective search for stored specimens collected in 1998 on Big Pine Key, FL. Positive identification of the specimens from the 1998 collection confirmed the specimens to be Ae. pertinax, predating the first reported specimen in the USA by 13 years.