About Anopheles sinensis

Range

Anopheles sinensis is considered an important vector of P.vivax in China and Korea. It is common throughout South East Asia from Pakistan to Japan and as far south as Thailand and Indonesia.

Habitats

The immature stages of An. sinensis are primarily found in lowland, shallow, fresh-water habitats with emergent and/or floating vegetation in open agriculture lands (mainly rice fields). They also utilise stream margins, irrigation ditches, ponds, marshes, swamps, bogs, pits, stump ground holes, grassy pools, flood pools, stream pools, rock pools, seepage-springs and wheel tracks. Shading requirements vary, but this species is more often associated with exposed and sunlit aquatic environments.

Resting and feeding preferences

Female An. sinensis feed throughout the night, with peak activity apparently occurring at different hours depending on locality. Under normal circumstances, females are predominantly zoophilic and exophilic, infrequently biting humans in the presence of their preferred hosts (buffalo and cattle), and are rarely found inside human habitations. In northern temperate climates, An. sinensis females hibernate in sheltered places from the end of October.

Vectorial capacity

There is evidence that An. sinensis is refractory to Plasmodium falciparum, but it is still considered an important vector of P. vivax malaria in both China and Korea. It is the most common anopheline species in Japan, where it is regarded as an important historical vector of malaria. An. sinensis is considered to be a minor malaria vector in Indonesia (Sumatra only) and has little or no involvement in malaria transmission in Thailand due to its zoophilic and exophilic behaviour and its prevalence primarily in areas where there is little or no malaria. Along the border between North and South Korea, it has been reported that An. sinensis comprised 80% of the anopheline mosquitoes attacking humans during an outbreak of P. vivax malaria but studies suggest that An. sinensis is a less effective vector of malaria in Korea than An. lesteri. The zoophilic and exophilic behaviour of this species suggests its vectorial capacity may be high only in the presence of large population densities.

This text was modified from Sinka ME et al. (2011) The dominant Anopheles vectors of human malaria in Asia-Pacific: occurrence data, distribution maps and bionomic précis Parasites & Vectors 4:89.

SINENSIS strain

Originally isolated from Korea, isofemale selection was performed prior to genome sequencing (this strain is available from BEI resources).

For more details about the strain:

Neafsey et al (121 authors). 2015. Highly evolvable malaria vectors: The genomes of 16 Anopheles mosquitoes. Science. Published Online November 27 2014

Source: VectorBase

Picture credit: James Gathany, CDC Public domain via Wikimedia Commons (Image source)

Taxonomy ID 74873

Data source VectorBase

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