Culicidae

Culiseta inconspicua, copyright Richard C. Russell.

Belongs within: Culicomorpha.
Contains: Anopheles, Aedes, Sabethini, Culex, Uranotaenia, Tripteroides.

The Culicidae, mosquitoes, are a group of delicately built flies best known for the blood-sucking habits of adult females of the majority of species. Blood meals are required for maturation of developing eggs; male and female mosquitoes otherwise feed on liquid plant-derived foods such as nectar and honeydew. Living mosquitoes are divided between two subfamilies, with the Culicinae having a respiratory siphon as larvae and scales on the abdominal tergites as adults, features absent in the Anophelinae (Chaverri 2009).

Characters (from Stone 1981): Slender delicate flies, 3-9 mm long. Legs slender. Proboscis slender, much longer than head; labrum, mandibles, laciniae, and hypopharynx greatly elongate, stylet-like, enclosed in sheath formed by labium; palpus of male usually about as long as proboscis, with terminal segments often bearing dense tufts of long setae. Wing veins and usually most of the body and legs clothed with scales.

<==Culicidae C09
    |  i. s.: Theobaldia annulata A71
    |         Opifex SS05
    |           |--O. (Nothoskusea) chathamicus [=Aedes (N.) chathamicus, Ochlerotatus (N.) chathamicus] SS05
    |           `--O. fuscus O81
    |         Mimomyia L91
    |           |--M. (Mimomyia) metallica L91
    |           `--M. (Etorleptiomyia) elegans L91
    |--Anophelinae [Anophelini] C09
    |    |--Anopheles C09
    |    |--Bironella C09
    |    `--Chagasia C09
    |         |--C. bathana (Dyar 1928) [=Anopheles (Chagasia) bathanus] SK56
    |         |--C. bonneae Root 1927 SK56
    |         `--C. rozeboomi Causey, Deane & Deane 1944 SK56
    `--+--Paleoculicis minutus GE05
       `--Culicinae C09
            |  i. s.: Aedeomyia C09
            |           |--A. catasticta Knab 1909 L91
            |           |--A. squamipennis C09
            |           `--A. venustipes L91
            |         Armigeres O98
            |         Topomyia O98
            |--Aedes C09
            |--Sabethini C09
            |--Toxorhynchites C09 [Toxorhynchitinae, Toxorhynchitini L91]
            |    |--T. amboensis WT11
            |    |--T. hypoptes C09
            |    |--T. moctezuma C09
            |    |--T. (Lynchiella) rutilus S81
            |    |--T. (Toxorhynchites) speciosus L91
            |    `--T. superbus C09
            `--Culicini C09
                 |--Culex C09
                 |--Uranotaenia S81
                 |--Tripteroides L91
                 |--Malaya genuostris CM70, L91
                 |--Orthopodomyia S81
                 |    |--O. alba Baker 1936 SM37
                 |    |--O. phyllozoa C09
                 |    `--O. signifera S81
                 |--Mansonia L91
                 |    |--M. nigricans M46
                 |    |--M. richiardii KK91
                 |    |--M. titillans C09
                 |    `--M. (Mansonoides) uniformis (Theobald 1901) (see below for synonymy) L91
                 |--Haemagogus S81
                 |    |--H. anastasionis KK38
                 |    |--H. (Longipalpifer) equinus Theob. 1903 S81, CA38
                 |    |--H. janthinomys C09
                 |    |--H. lucifer C09
                 |    |--H. mesodentatus Komp & Kumm 1938 KK38
                 |    |--H. panarchys Dyar 1921 CA38
                 |    `--H. tropicalis Cerqueira & Antunes 1938 CA38
                 |--Deinocerites S81
                 |    |--D. cancer C09
                 |    |--D. costaricensis C09
                 |    |--D. epitedeus C09
                 |    `--D. pseudes C09
                 |--Psorophora S81
                 |    |--P. ciliata S81
                 |    |--P. columbiae S81
                 |    |--P. confinnis C09
                 |    `--P. ferox C09
                 |--Coquillettidia L91
                 |    |--C. (Coquillettidia) L91
                 |    |    |--C. (C.) crassipes L91
                 |    |    |--C. (C.) iracunda D05
                 |    |    |--C. (C.) linealis L91
                 |    |    |--C. (C.) perturbans S81
                 |    |    `--C. (C.) xanthogaster (Edwards 1924) L91
                 |    `--C. (Austromansonia) tenuipalpis D05
                 `--Culiseta S81
                      |  i. s.: C. annulata KK91
                      |         C. impatiens C09
                      |         C. incidens S81
                      |         C. inornata C09
                      |         C. particeps C09
                      |--C. (Climacura) tonnoiri D04
                      |--C. (Culicella) L91
                      |    |--C. (C.) atra Lee 1944 L91
                      |    `--C. (C.) inconspicua L91
                      `--C. (Neotheobaldia) hilli L91

Mansonia (Mansonoides) uniformis (Theobald 1901) [=Panoplites uniformis; incl. M. australiensis Giles 1902, M. marquesensis Dyar 1925, Panoplites reversus Theobald 1901, M. reversus] L91

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[A71] Askew, R. R. 1971. Parasitic Insects. Heinemann Educational Books: London.

[CA38] Cerqueira, N., & P. C. A. Antunes. 1938. Haemagogus tropicalis, a new species from Pará, Brazil (Diptera, Culicidae). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 40 (1): 1–9.

[C09] Chaverri, L. G. 2009. Culicidae (mosquitos, zancudos). In: Brown, B. V., A. Borkent, J. M. Cumming, D. M. Wood, N. E. Woodley & M. A. Zumbado (eds) Manual of Central American Diptera vol. 1 pp. 369–388. NRC Research Press: Ottawa.

[CM70] Colless, D. H., & D. K. McAlpine. 1970. Diptera (flies). In: CSIRO. The Insects of Australia: A textbook for students and research workers pp. 656–740. Melbourne University Press.

[D04] Derraik, J. G. B. 2004. A survey of the mosquito (Diptera: Culicidae) fauna of the Auckland Zoological Park. New Zealand Entomologist 27: 51–55.

[D05] Derraik, J. G. B. 2005. Notes on some adult mosquito (Diptera: Culicidae) records from West Auckland. Weta 29: 12–15.

[GE05] Grimaldi, D., & M. S. Engel. 2005. Evolution of the Insects. Cambridge University Press: New York.

[KK91] Kamarinchev, B., T. Kovacheva, T. Christova, G. Georgieva & V. Zlatanova. 1991. Studies on mosquitoes and ticks as carriers of alpha-, flavi- and bunyaviruses. In: Dusbábek, F., & V. Bukva (eds) Modern Acarology: Proceedings of the VIII International Congress of Acarology, held in České Budĕjovice, Czechoslovakia, 6–11 August 1990 vol. 2 pp. 89–92. SPB Academic Publishing: The Hague.

[KK38] Komp, W. H. W., & H. W. Kumm. 1938. A new species of Haemagogus, mesodentatus, from Costa Rica, and a description of the larva of Haemagogus anastasionis Dyar (Diptera, Culicidae). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 40 (9): 253–259.

[L91] Liehne, P. F. S. 1991. An Atlas of the Mosquitoes of Western Australia. Health Department of Western Australia.

[M46] Michener, C. D. 1946. The taxonomy and bionomics of some Panamanian trombidiid mites. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 39: 349–380.

[O81] O’Brien, C. O. 1981. A. A. Book of New Zealand Wildlife: A guide to the native and introduced animals of New Zealand. Lansdowne Press: Auckland.

[O98] Oosterbroek, P. 1998. The Families of Diptera of the Malay Archipelago. Brill: Leiden.

[SM37] Shields, S. E., & V. I. Miles. 1937. The occurrence of Orthopodomyia alba in Alabama (Diptera: Culicidae). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 39 (8): 237.

[SS05] Snell, A. E., & P. J. Sirvid. 2005. Mosquitoes of the Chatham Islands: Notes on Opifex chathamicus (=Ochlerotatus chathamicus) (Dumbleton) (Diptera: Culicidae). Weta 29: 6–8.

[S81] Stone, A. 1981. Culicidae. In: McAlpine, J. F., B. V. Peterson, G. E. Shewell, H. J. Teskey, J. R. Vockeroth & D. S. Wood (eds) Manual of Nearctic Diptera vol. 1 pp. 341–350. Research Branch, Agriculture Canada.

[WT11] Wiegmann, B. M., M. D. Trautwein, I. S. Winkler, N. B. Barr, J.-W. Kim, C. Lambkin, M. A. Bertone, B. K. Cassel, K. M. Bayless, A. M. Heimberg, B. M. Wheeler, K. J. Peterson, T. Pape, B. J. Sinclair, J. H. Skevington, V. Blagoderov, J. Caravas, S. N. Kutty, U. Schmidt-Ott, G. E. Kampmeier, F. C. Thompson, D. A. Grimaldi, A. T. Beckenbach, G. W. Courtney, M. Friedrich, R. Meier & D. K. Yeates. 2011. Episodic radiations in the fly tree of life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 108 (14): 5690–5695.

Last updated: 27 December 2020.