Adults females, larvae and pupae of A. cruzii Dyar & Knab, 1908 and A. homunculus Komp, 1937 are very similar morphologically, causing difficulty in their proper identification with traditional taxonomic characters. Here, RAPD and RFLP were used to resolve this problem of identification of these two species. Mosquito DNA, amplified with the random primers OPY-05 and OPY-10, and enzymatic digestion of the ITS2 region with HaeIII and Sau96I generated species-specific patterns. Thus, through the use of these molecular markers, these two species may be correctly identified when only females, larvae ou pupae are collected, or when individuals are damaged in the collection process.
Anopheles (Kerteszia); identification; malaria vector; random amplified polymorphic DNA; second internal transcribed spacer
