| Summary: | Mosquitoes are arthropods that represent a real public health problem in Africa. Morphology and molecular biology techniques are usually used to identify different mosquito species. In recent years, an innovative tool, matrix-assisted desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS), has been used to identify many arthropods quickly and at low cost, where equipment is available. We evaluated the ability of MALDI-TOF MS to identify mosquitoes collected in Senegal and stored for several months in silica gel, and to determine the origin of their blood meal. A total of 582 mosquitoes were collected and analysed. We obtained 329/582 (56.52%) MALDI-TOF MS good-quality spectra from mosquito legs and 123/157 (78.34%) good-quality spectra from engorged abdomens. We updated our home-made MALDI-TOF MS arthropod spectra database by adding 23 spectra of five mosquito species from Senegal that had been identified morphologically and molecularly. These included legs from <i>Anopheles gambiae</i>, <i>Anopheles arabiensis, Anopheles</i> cf. <i>rivulorum</i>, <i>Culex nebulosus</i>, <i>Anopheles funestus</i>, and three spectra from abdomens engorged with human blood. Having updated the database, all mosquitoes tested by MALDI-TOF MS were identified with scores greater than or equal to 1.7 as <i>An. gambiae</i> (<i>n</i> = 64), <i>Anopheles coluzzii</i> (<i>n</i> = 12), <i>An. arabiensis</i> (<i>n</i> = 1), <i>An. funestus</i> (<i>n</i> = 7), <i>An. cf rivulorum</i> (<i>n</i> = 1), <i>Lutzia tigripes</i> (<i>n</i> = 3), <i>Cx. nebulosus</i> (<i>n</i> = 211), <i>Culex quinquefasciatus</i> (<i>n</i> = 2), <i>Culex duttoni</i> (<i>n</i> = 1), <i>Culex perfescus</i> (<i>n</i> = 1), <i>Culex tritaeniorhynchus</i> (<i>n</i> = 1), and <i>Aedes aegypti</i> (<i>n</i> = 2). Blood meal identification by MALDI-TOF MS revealed that mosquitoes had fed on the blood of humans (<i>n</i> = 97), cows (<i>n</i> = 6), dogs (<i>n</i> = 2), goats (<i>n</i> = 1), sheep (<i>n</i> = 1), and bats (<i>n</i> = 1). Mixed meals were also detected. These results confirm that MALDI-TOF MS is a promising technique for identifying mosquitoes and the origin of their blood meal.
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