Characteristics: Everyone knows how annoying and painful mosquitoes can be. Somehow, no matter how many you manage to swat, there always seem to be some that manage to get through to give you a nasty, itchy bite or two.Adults: Globular head, a large part of the surface of which is taken up by the compound eyes; a pair of antennae, which are about three times as long as the head, are somewhat hairy in the female and quite bushy in the male; this difference provides a ready means of distinguishing between the sexes with the naked eye. Also on the head a pair of palps, one on each side of the proboscis; in the female they are smooth, in the male they have tufts of bristles.
Mouthparts form a long thin projecting proboscis which in the female are designed for piercing; there is a single pair of membranous wings which bear tiny scales along the veins as well as a fringe of scales along the hind margin. The wing venation is also typical with 6 longitudinal veins of which the second, fourth and fifth are forked; tarsi are 5-segmented.
Larvae: Entirely aquatic. They have a well developed head followed by a swollen unsegmented thorax; abdomen is segmented and there is a pair of spiracles on the last but one segment through which they breathe at the water's surface. Tufts of bristles arise from many of the body segments.
Pupae: Comma-shaped with a curved tail which ends in a pair of paddles; head is equipped with a pair of respiratory trumpets through which the pupa breathes. The fused head and thorax show traces of the wings and long legs of the adult which are developing inside
Metamorphosis is complete with egg, larval, pupal and adult stages. There are about 3000 species of mosquitoes in the world.