Oriental Chironomus: C. pulcher

C. pulcher Wiedemann 1830.

It is likely that, as presently recognised, it is comprised of more than just one species.

Possible synonyms:

C. congolensis Goetghebuer 1936
C. linearis Kieffer
Freeman (1957) listed a number of species as synonyms:
C. tripunctatus Kieffer 1908, C. nairobi 1913, C. sensualis Kieffer 1914, C. schwetzi Goetghebuer 1936, with additional information from Dejoux, 1968).

Adult: (based on description of Indian specimens by Chaudhuri et al. (1992).

Male terminalia of C. pulcher.
From Chaudhuri et al. (1992)

Male: Body length 4.78-4.85 mm; wing 3.19 mm long, 0.58 mm wide; VR abt 1.04. AR abt 3.43. Anterior LR abt 1.54; mid LR abt 0.63, hind LR abt 0.69.
Head: Yellowish brown, antennae and palps brown; frontal tubercles present; clypeus with 18-20 setae Ratio of maxillary palp segments: 8 : 12: 42 : 40 : 60 - P5/P4 1.5; P5/P3 1.43.
Thorax: Greenish yellow, mesoscutum with 3 dark yellow vittae.
Setae: Acrostichals 16, dorsocentrals 14-15, humerals 2, prealars 4, scutellar 12.
Legs: Yellowish green, tarsal segments slightly darker at apices. Fore tibia with blunt scale (see b above) with 2 long setae.
Abdomen: Tergites greenish yellow with slightly darker markings on the middorsal line.
Hypopygium as illustrated above, anal point narrow, slightly expanded subapically; superior volsella of D-type.

Pupa: (from Dejoux 1968)): length about 9-10 mm. Spur about 250 µm long, with 1-2 spines.

C. pulcher pupa and larval mouthparts.

C. pulcher larva.
From Chaudhuri et al. (1992)

Fourth instar larva: a plumosus-type.  No other information on larvae from India or the oriental region known, so information from African specimens:
Length 15-16 mm.  Gula darkened.  Lateral tubules about 0.8-1.0 mm long, ventral tubules coiled in the typical plumosus-type manner, posterior pair longer.  Anal tubules 1.5-1.8 mm long, dorsal pair with a constriction in the middle, ventral pair longer and more or less straight.
Mentum with 4th laterals hardly reduced (type I), central trifid tooth probably of type III. Ventromentum about 2.6x longer than depth, Dejoux's figure suggests about 23 striae; VMR about 3.  Pecten epipharyngis with about 13 broad sharp teeth (type B).
Antenna with A1 about 3 times longer than wide, RO about a third up from the base; AR about 3.5, segment lengths (micron) 120 : 17 : 5 : 9; 3; the blade reaching to the last segment.
Premandible with teeth coming to relatively sharp points (ty. A, or poss. B1 ), inner tooth perhaps 4 times wider than outerMandible with 3rd inner tooth separated and darkened (type IIIC), MTR perhaps 0.47.

Cytology:  Wülker et al. (2011) have given a description of the banding sequences of specimens tentatively described as C. pulcher from Kenya in Africa.
Three polytene chromosomes with the modified thummi cytocomplex arm combination AE, CD, FEG.  Centromeric bands not heterochromatic, nucleolus terminal in arm F (quite unusual in Chironomus), but nucleolus-like bodies at the ends of arms A, B, and G.
pulA1: 1 - 3, 8 - 6, 16d - 17, 11e - 9, 4ab, 5 - 4c, 16c - 12, 18 - 19
pulB1: Characteristic bands near centromere, puff developed about 1/3 from distal end.
pulC1:
pulC2: Inversion of most of the arm.
pulD1: 1 - 3, 11 - 12, 10e-a, 13 - 19b, 4 - 9, 19c - 24             5 inv steps from piger D1
pulE1: 1 - 2, 6e - 4, 13 - 12, 3f-a, 6f - 11, 13                3 inv steps from piger E1
pulF1: 1 - 10, 19 - 11, 20 - 23(N)                      Inv 11a - 19d from piger F1
pulG1: Large BR near site of fusion, small BR or puff in center of the arm, with a possible small nucleolus at the telomeric end

Possible karyotype of C. pulcher from Wülker et al. 2011

Found: India - Burdwan, West Bengal.
South Africa - "Cape" (Type locality).
Kenya - nr. River Athi, s. Nairobi (Wülker et al. 2011).

Morphology described by Chaudhuri et al. 1992. Possible cytology by Wülker et al. (2011). However, it is likely that there is more than one species currently included under this name.

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