Evidence of a putative new species Haemagogus ‘Trinidad sp. A’ from the Caribbean sharing mitogenome lineages with species endemic to the Amazon

Species of mosquitoes in the genus Haemagogus, native to the forests of the Caribbean, and South and Central America, are extraordinarily understudied despite their known role as sylvatic vectors of yellow fever and Mayaro viruses. Haemagogus janthinomys is the best studied species in the genus but represents only one of two subgenera. Genomic data for this genus is also limited to full mitochondrial genomes for six taxa, severely curtailing insight into the biogeography and evolutionary systematics of this genus. This work presents 9 new complete mitochondrial genome sequences of a putative new Haemagogus species from Trinidad. The average length of the mitogenomes generated was 16,900 bp, with 78.2% A-T content, and 37 genes which are similar to the other published Haemagogus mitogenomes from Brazil, Jamaica and Trinidad. Phylogenetic and molecular dating analyses were conducted using the merged 13 protein coding genes from available Haemagogus mitogenomes. Bayesian inference placed the putative new Trinidad Haemagogus species in a strongly supported clade with Hg. tropicalis, a species restricted to the Brazilian Amazon. Furthermore, molecular dating calculations estimated divergence for the putative new Trinidad Haemagogus species from Hg. tropicalis approximately 61 million years ago (MYA). This research reinforces the subdivision of the Haemagogus subgenus into 3 sections (Albomaculatus, Spledens, Tropicalis), with the putative new species placed into the Tropicalis section. These findings emphasize the importance of further investigations to include additional taxa from geographic regions where the Haemagogus genus is found.