mosquito

A blood-sucking dipterous insect of the family Culicidae. Aedes, Anopheles, Culex, Mansonia, and Stegomyia are the genera containing most of the species involved in the transmission of protozoan and other disease-producing parasites. [Sp. dim. of mosca, fly, fr. L. musca, a fly]

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mos·qui·to mə-'skēt-(.)ō, -ə(-w) n, pl -toes also -tos any of numerous dipteran flies of the family Culicidae that have a rather narrow abdomen, usu. a long slender rigid proboscis, and narrow wings with a fringe of scales on the margin and usu. on each side of the wing veins, that have in the male broad feathery antennae and mouthparts not fitted for piercing and in the female slender antennae and a set of needlelike organs in the proboscis with which they puncture the skin of animals to suck the blood, that lay their eggs on the surface of stagnant water, that include many species which pass through several generations in the course of a year and hibernate as adults or winter in the egg state, and that include some species which are the only vectors of certain diseases see AEDES, ANOPHELES, CULEX

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n.

a small winged bloodsucking insect belonging to a large group - the Diptera (two-winged flies). Its mouthparts are formed into a long proboscis for piercing the skin and sucking blood. Female mosquitoes transmit the parasites responsible for several major infectious diseases, such as malaria. See Anopheles, Aëdes, Culex.

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mos·qui·to (məs-keґto) pl. mosquitoes [Sp. “little fly”] any of the gnatlike insects of the family Culicidae; many are bloodsucking and are vectors of human and animal diseases; others are venomous.