CULICIDiE: CULICALES, MEGALORRHINI, ETC. 113 



Section III. — Megalorrhini {^ = Megarhinince, Theobald) 

 (Gr. y«eyaXo/3/oii/os = with large beak). 



The species included in this small section are very large- 

 sized, jungle mosquitoes having the proboscis strongly bent 

 downwards and backwards. The body is covered entirely 

 with flat scales — broad imbricating squames on the head, 

 scutellum, and abdomen, narrower elliptical squames on the 

 scutum — which are strongly iridescent. The wings are never 

 spotted. Both the "fork-cells" (2nd marginal and 2nd 

 posterior) are remarkably small. The metanotum is bare. 

 The palpi of the male are about the same length as the 

 proboscis, those of the female are sometimes as long as, 

 sometimes considerably shorter than the proboscis. As a 

 rule the sides of the terminal segments of the abdomen are 

 thickly fringed with long, narrow, often bright-coloured 

 bristles. Larva with a breathing-tube. 



The larvae (Fig. 1 5) are carnivorous and are undoubtedly 

 predatory upon the larvae of such Culicidcs as breed in ponds, 

 or in any small casual collection of water, in or near jungle. 

 They can be recognised, apart from size, by the stiff shortly- 

 pinnate bristles or spines that represent some of the lateral 

 thoracic and abdominal hairs of other Culicine larvae ; and by 

 their stiff rake-like mouth-brushes. It must be remembered, 

 however, that spines of much the same kind occur in certain 

 other Culicine larvae that live in chance collections of water in 

 jungle, and that similar mouth-rakes are found in certain 

 oih.t.r predatory Culicine larvae. 



Theobald recognises three genera in this homogeneous 

 little section, namely, ATegarhi?tus, Robineau-Desvoidy, in 

 which the palpi are long in both sexes and end bluntly in the 

 female ; Ankylorhynchus, Lutz, in which the palpi are long 

 in both sexes and are pointed in the female ; and Toxo- 

 rhynchites, Theobald, in which the palpi of the female are less 

 than half the length of the proboscis. The species of 

 Megarhinus occur only in the Neotropical Region and its 

 confines, those of Ankylorhynchus (three in number) are 

 exclusively Neotropical ; while Toxorhynchites though chiefly 

 Oriental is also represented in the Australian and Ethiopian 

 regions, 



H 



