29 
Gilesta aculeata. — Theobald (1903). 
£ . Head brown, covered with flat spindle-shaped pale creamy 
scales, except round the eyes, where the scales are smaller and 
bright golden ; there are also numerous narrow biack upright 
forked scales : clypeus shiny black ; palpi bright yellowish-tes- 
taceous with rather scanty flat black scales and a few black 
bristles, longish, about one-fourth the length of the black pro- 
boscis, which is rather thick ; antennae brown, the basal joint 
and the three following joints bright ochraceous, basal joint with 
numerous black hairs and a few small flat black scales, second 
joint with a few small black scales also. Thorax dark brown, 
scantily covered with rather large flat creamy spindle-shaped 
scales at the sides of the mesothorax and behind, with narrow- 
curved creamy yellow scales in the middle ; a few rather short 
black bristles over the roots of the wings ; scutellum dark brown, 
testaceous at the base, irregularly covered with small flat and 
small spindle-shaped creamy scales, with apparently a double 
row of brown bristles to the border of the median lobe ; metano- 
tum brown and deep testaceous, shiny ; pleurae dark rich brown, 
with numerous scattered pale flat scales. Abdomen greyish 
brown at the base, steely black at the apex (when denuded), 
covered with deep brown scales with dull violet reflections, 
traces of irregularly creamy white to almost yellow basal banding 
on the basal segments, on the last three apical segments the pale 
scales spread out over the whole of the segments, giving them a 
mottled appearance, and especially forming more or less distinct 
ochraceous yellow apical bands, the scales on the apical segment 
being particularly bright ; the basal pale-scaled bands spread out 
laterally to form distinct large lateral creamy white spots ; venter 
with scattered white scales. Legs brown, mottled on the femora, 
tibiae, and metatarsi with yellow scales ; tarsi and metatarsi 
with basal creamy white bands, except the last tarsal joint 
apex of femora, tibiae, and other joints dark scaled ; the pale 
scales form more or less of a ring beiore the black apex of the 
femora ; tibiae very bristly, and to some extent the femora ; 
the whole of the last tarsal joint on all the legfj black ;. 
ungues large and thick, all uniserrated. Wings large, slightly 
clouded ; the veins covered with brown Taeniorhynchus-like 
scales, wings longer than the abdomen ; fork-cells short ; first 
sub-marginal ceU slightly narrower and scarcely longer than the 
second posterior cell, its stem more than half the length of the 
cell, its base a little nearer the apex of the wing than that of the 
second posterior ; stem of the latter more than two-thirds the 
length of the cell ; posterior cross-vein rather close to the mid 
cross- vein. Hal teres with pale stem and brown knob. 
Length, 6 mm. Time of capture, May. Habitat, Southern 
Queensland. 
This is a large biting mosquito, at first sight resembling 
Culex tigripes ; only two females have so far been taken ; found 
