Mosquitoes

Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a family of small flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word mosquito (formed by mosca and diminutive-ito) is Spanish and Portuguese for little fly. Mosquitoes have a slender, segmented body, one pair of wings, three pairs of long hair-like legs, and a specialized, highly elongated set of mouthparts forming a proboscis, adapted for piercing and sucking. All mosquitoes drink nectar from flowers; females of many species have adapted to also drink blood. The group diversified during the Cretaceous period. Evolutionary biologists view mosquitoes as micropredators, small animals that parasitise larger ones by drinking their blood without immediately killing them. Medical parasitologists view mosquitoes as vectors of disease, carrying protozoan parasites or bacterial or viralpathogens from one host to another.