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Mosquitoes are small flies that comprise the family Culicidae, with over 3,600 species. The females of most species feed on blood, which they obtain by piercing the skin of hosts with a proboscis. Mosquitoes are important vectors for transmitting diseases like malaria, yellow fever, dengue, Zika, and others. By transmitting diseases, mosquitoes cause over 700,000 deaths per year, making them responsible for more human deaths than any other animal. Mosquitoes have been around for over 99 million years, with the oldest known fossils found in amber.

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21 views3 pages

Nyamuk

Mosquitoes are small flies that comprise the family Culicidae, with over 3,600 species. The females of most species feed on blood, which they obtain by piercing the skin of hosts with a proboscis. Mosquitoes are important vectors for transmitting diseases like malaria, yellow fever, dengue, Zika, and others. By transmitting diseases, mosquitoes cause over 700,000 deaths per year, making them responsible for more human deaths than any other animal. Mosquitoes have been around for over 99 million years, with the oldest known fossils found in amber.

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HBL MARCH
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This article is about the insect.

For other uses, see Mosquito (disambiguation).

Mosquito

Temporal range: 99–0 Ma

PreꞒ

Pg

Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) – Recent

Female Culiseta longiareolata

Scientific classification

Domain: Eukaryota

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Diptera

Superfamily: Culicoidea

Family: Culicidae
Meigen, 1818[1]

Subfamilies

 Anophelinae
 Culicinae

Diversity

41 genera

Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are approximately 3,600 species of small flies comprising the


family Culicidae (from the Latin culex meaning "gnat").[1] The word "mosquito" (formed
by mosca and diminutive -ito)[2] is Spanish for "little fly".[3][4] Mosquitoes have a slender segmented
body, one pair of wings, one pair of halteres, three pairs of long hair-like legs, and elongated
mouthparts.
The mosquito life cycle consists of egg, larva, pupa, and adult stages. Eggs are laid on the water
surface; they hatch into motile larvae that feed on aquatic algae and organic material. These
larvae are important food sources for many freshwater animals, such as dragonfly nymphs, many
fish, and some birds such as ducks.[5] The adult females of most species have tube-like
mouthparts (called a proboscis) that can pierce the skin of a host and feed on blood, which
contains protein and iron needed to produce eggs. Thousands of mosquito species feed on the
blood of various hosts — vertebrates, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and some
fish; along with some invertebrates, primarily other arthropods.
The mosquito's saliva is transferred to the host during the bite, and can cause an itchy rash. In
addition, many species can ingest pathogens while biting, and transmit them to future hosts. In
this way, mosquitoes are important vectors of parasitic diseases such as malaria and filariasis,
and arboviral diseases such as yellow fever, Chikungunya, West Nile, dengue fever, and Zika.
By transmitting diseases, mosquitoes cause the deaths of more people than any other animal
taxon: over 700,000 each year.[6][7] It has been claimed that almost half of the people who have
ever lived have died of mosquito-vectored disease,[8] but this claim is disputed, with more
conservative estimates placing the death toll closer to 5% of all humans.[9][10] Mosquitoes cannot
live or function properly when the air temperature is below 10 °C (50 °F).[11] They are mostly
active at 15–25 °C (59– °F).[12]

Fossil record and evolutionary history


The oldest known mosquitoes are known from amber dating to the Late Cretaceous. Three
species of Cretaceous mosquito are currently known, Burmaculex antiquus and Priscoculex
burmanicus are known from Burmese amber from Myanmar, which dates to the earliest part of
the Cenomanian stage of the Late Cretaceous, around 99 million years ago.[13][14] Paleoculicis
minutus, is known from Canadian amber from Alberta, Canada, which dates to
the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous, around 79 million years ago.[15] Priscoculex
burmanicus can be definitively assigned to Anophelinae, one of the two subfamilies of
mosquitoes alongside Culicinae, indicating the split between these two subfamilies occurred over
99 million years ago.[14] Molecular estimates suggest that the split between the two subfamilies
occurred 197.5 million years ago, during the Early Jurassic, but that major diversification did not
take place until the Cretaceous.[16]
The mosquito Anopheles gambiae is currently undergoing speciation into the M(opti) and
S(avanah) molecular forms. Consequently, some pesticides that work on the M form no longer
work on the S form.[17] Over 3,500 species of the Culicidae have already been described.[18] They
are generally divided into two subfamilies which in turn comprise some 43 genera. These figures
are subject to continual change, as more species are discovered, and as DNA studies compel
rearrangement of the taxonomy of the family. The two main subfamilies are the Anophelinae and
Culicinae, with their genera as shown in the subsection below.[19] The distinction is of great
practical importance because the two subfamilies tend to differ in their significance as vectors of
different classes of diseases. Roughly speaking, arboviral diseases such as yellow
fever and dengue fever tend to be transmitted by culicine species, not necessarily in the
genus Culex. Some transmit various species of avian malaria, but it is not clear that they ever
transmit any form of human malaria. Some species transmit various forms of filariasis, much as
many Simuliidae do.

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