Sequences of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) mitochondrial gene from adults of 22
Culex (
Culex) species from Argentina and Brazil were employed to assess species identification and to test the usefulness of COI for barcoding using the best close match (BCM) algorithm. A pairwise Kimura two-parameter distance matrix including the mean intra and interspecific distances for 71 COI barcode sequences was constructed. Of the 12 COI lineages recovered in the Neighbour-joining topology, five confirmed recognised morphological species (
Cx. acharistus
,
Cx. chidesteri
,
Cx. dolosus
,
Cx. lygrus
and
Cx. saltanensis
) with intraspecific divergences lower than 1.75%.
Cx. bilineatus
is formally resurrected from the synonymy of
Cx. dolosus.
Cx. maxi
,
Cx. surinamensis
and the Coronator group species included were clustered into an unresolved lineage. The intraspecific distance of
Cx. pipiens
(3%) was almost twice the interspecific between it and
Cx. quinquefasciatus
(1.6%). Regarding the BCM criteria, the COI barcode successfully identified 69% of all species. The rest of the sequences, approximately 10%, 18% and 3%, remained as ambiguously, mis and unidentified, respectively. The COI barcode does not contain enough information to distinguish
Culex (
Cux.) species.
