A handbook of the gnats or mosquitoes : giving the anatomy and life history of the Culicidæ, together with descriptions of all species noticed up to the present date / by Geo. M. Giles.

  • Giles, George Michael James, 1853-1916.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A handbook of the gnats or mosquitoes : giving the anatomy and life history of the Culicidæ, together with descriptions of all species noticed up to the present date / by Geo. M. Giles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    559/640 (page 507)
    5 .—Head pale dusky brown ; eyes black ; rostrum and palpi dusky - brown, hairy ; antennae very indistinctly banded brown and grey. Of a pale straw colour. Thorax with a median dark brown line, broad in front, narrowing behind, and two lateral dark brown patches behind on the mesonotum, separated by black specks. Abdomen straw-coloured, with dusky specks laterally, and darker at the base. Legs stout, pale, darker towards their apices. Wings yellowish, the veins very densely clothed with long hair-like yellow scales, specially long on the inner fringe, and with 4 barely internal to 3. Halteres pale yellow.— Length.—2’3 mm. Habitat.—Shahjahanpur, N.W.P., India ; taken in my dining room near a lamp. I was unable to find any further specimens, or the breeding place of the larvae. Fig. 49.—Wing of Corethra Asiatica, sp.n., magnified 20 diameters. Genus XXIV. MOCHLONYX, Loew. In this very peculiar genus the legs differ from those of all other members of the family in having the second tarsal joint longer than the first, instead of the latter being, as in the other genera, one of the longest in the entire appendage. Another singular point is that, while the imagines much resemble those of Corethra, the larvae are more like those of Culex. Mr. Theobald, to whom I am indebted for the following diagnosis, is, I understand, of the opinion that in reality but one species, Mochlonyx velutinus, Ruthe, can be considered as established, and that the others are but synonyms. In this genus the proboscis is much shorter than the head and thorax, but rather longer than the head. Palpi four-jointed, and twice as long as the proboscis ; antennae fifteen-jointed, the last two joints longest and verticillate ; joints increasing in size from base to apex. Tran verse veins rather more distant from the margin than in Corethra, otherwise much the same, the veins being very delicate ; the branches of the forked veins more than twice as long as their stems. Ungues large, with a distinct accessory tooth.