83 



Family Culicidae — The Mosquitoes 



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Aedes larv«. Note position at surface of water characteristic of the 

 Culicini. (After Matheson, courtesy C. C. Thomas). 



Slender, delicate flies, with slender legs and usualh^ with scales 

 upon the body and appendages. 



Head small, siibspherical; eyes reniform; ocelli absent. Antenna 

 slender, elongate, composed of fourteen or fifteen segments, densely 

 plumose in the males; first segment reduced to a narrow ring, second 

 globose, the following elongated, nearly or quite cylindrical and with 

 whorls of hairs, in the male the apical two segments elongated and 

 nearly Ijare. Thorax ovate, arched but not projecting over the head, 

 without transverse suture; scutellum short, evenly rounded or trilo- 

 bate; metanotum ustially arched. Abdomen long and narrow, some- 

 what arched, composed of nine or ten segments; male genitalia promi- 

 nent but not large; ovipositor short. Legs long and slender, the coxas 

 not elongate; tarsi long, the claws often denticulate. Wings long and 

 narrow, at rest lying flat over the abdomen, with six fully developed 

 longitudinal veins reaching the margin, the posterior margin fringed 

 with hairs or scales, the costal vein extending around the wing; vena- 

 tion as in figure; two basal cells, the veins usually clothed with scales. 



