Genetics of eye-gap and maroon-eye mutants in the mosquito

Linkage analysis of two new eye mutants, eye-gap (e) and maroon-eye (mar), in the mosquito Culex pipiens, is presented. Both mutants are sex-linked, recessive, and demonstrate complete penetrance and high expressivity. The gene order is e-m-mar. The most representative map distances in e-m and m-mar segments are 17.7 and 26.1, respectively. Our maroon-eye was isolated from Belem, Brazil and is allelic to another maroon-eye mutant isolated from Lake Charles, Louisiana. However, while mar (Lake Charles) straddles along the sex locus, m (map distance approximately 1 unit), the mar (Belem) gene is far removed from m (map distance 26.1 units).