Family CULICIDAE Meigen, 1818

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External Links

Mosquito Taxonomic Inventory. Harbach, R.E. 2011.
Systematic Catalog of Culicidae: Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit, Div. of Entomology, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA

Family CULICIDAE Meigen, 1818

Compiler and date details

2011-2012 - Karin Koch, Kathleen Nugent, Judith King and Christine Lambkin, Queensland Museum, Brisbane, Queensland Australia

1999 - Wendy Lee & Eva Bugledich, CSIRO Entomology, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

Introduction

The family Culicidae (as now restricted, excluding the families Dixidae, Chaoboridae and Corethrellidae) comprises the true mosquitoes. The adult females of most species are obliged to take a blood meal to mature their eggs. This blood-feeding is associated with their role as vectors of diseases such as malaria, filariases, and arboviroses including Australian diseases such as dengue, Ross River Fever and encephalitides such as Australian arbo-encephalitis.

The larvae of Culicidae are easily recognised by the lack of prolegs, the fused and distended three thoracic segments and the presence of distinctive mouth (labral) brushes on the head. Larval mosquitoes are much more common in lentic (standing) waters than lotic: in running waters they are restricted to sheltered margins, and here Anopheles may be common. The three major groupings can be recognised in the larval stage: the subfamily Anophelinae lacks a respiratory siphon, having the respiratory spiracles dorsally situated on a chitinised plate, and the Culicinae and Toxorhynchitinae with the spiracles on a respiratory siphon. The latter are predators, occurring only in phytotelmata.

The medical significance of Australian mosquitoes derives from the human-blood-feeding of the female and the ability of several species thereby to transmit disease (act as vectors). Contrary to popular belief, this ability to transmit disease is not confined to tropical mosquitoes. For example, mosquito-transmitted infections of Ross River virus (cause of Epidemic Polyarthritis or “Ross River disease”) have occurred as far south as Northern Tasmania. The mosquito-transmitted disease primarily of dogs, canine heartworm or Dirofilaria immitis, is endemic throughout the continent. Other “tropical” diseases of humans such as dengue can occur in the subtropics, and in the past, outbreaks of malaria extended outside the humid tropics. The risk of native temperate mosquitoes transmitting malaria onwards from a returning infectious traveller are not negligible. Mosquitoes figure amongst important transmitters of the disease myxomatosis amongst rabbits.

The Culicidae are speciose and cosmopolitan. The fossil record is surprisingly poor, with earliest records based on a compression fossil larva from the lower Jurassic, and adults from the Cretaceous. The Australian culicid fauna seems to be predominantly derived from northern elements, with no generic endemism, and many links to New Guinea. The mosquito fauna of inland SW Western Australia was studied by Lindsay et al. (2007).