Culicidae Meigen, 1818

Mosquitoes are one of the best-studied families of Diptera. The perennial plea for more detailed analyses refers to their role in transmitting various disease pathogens (viruses, malaria, filarioses, etc.). Females of many species are haematophagous, and they suck the blood of vertebrates.

Body slender, usually 3.0-9.0 mm long, rarely longer. Compound eyes large, occupying most of head laterally, ocelli absent. Antenna 15-segmented, bushy in males and with long setae on flagellomeres. Female mouthparts consisting of a piercing proboscis, longer than height of head; proboscis of males shorter, mandibular and maxillary stylets variously reduced. Scutum forming the largest part of mesonotum. Scutellum trilobed (Culicinae excluding Toxorhynchitini) or rounded (Anophelinae, Toxorhynchitini). Wings narrow, long, with scales on hind-margin and veins; membrane covered with microtrichia. Costal vein developed around the whole wing, subcosta long, radius diverging into four branches marginally, R1, R2, R3, R4+5. Media ramified into M1 and M2. Cross-veins r-m and m-m visible. Legs slender, praetarsus with claws and short empodium between them. Abdomen long, cylindrical, 10- segmented with spiracles on second and seventh segments. Male terminalia rotate 180° shortly after hatching (hypopygium inversum); most of terminalia occupied by gonopods. In females one (Anophelinae) or three (Culicinae) spermathecae in 7th-8th abdominal segments. Females lay eggs on the water surface (Anopheles, Culex, Culiseta, Coquillettidia, Uranotaenia) or on soil in depressions subject to filling by rains, melting snow, or floodwater (Aedes and Ochlerotatus). There are four larval instars which are all aquatic. Larvae as well as pupae are agile.

Approximately 3540 species are known worldwide (Walter Reed Biosystematic Unit 2001). More than 100 occur in Europe (Snow & Ramsdale 2003, 2005), of which 45 have been recorded in the Czech Republic (39 in Bohemia, 39 in Moravia) and 50 in Slovakia.

The identification of mosquitoes in the area of the Czech Republic and Slovakia is based on the important monograph by Kramář (1958). However, useful information can be found in the keys contained in other papers (Dahl 1997, Mihályi & Sztankay-Gulyás 1963, Mohrig 1969, Mončadskij 1951). The most recent survey of the mosquitoes of the area of the Czech Republic and Slovakia was published in ECV1 (Országh et al. 2006). A catalogue of the Slovak species was published by Országh (2004). Distribution maps for the species in Slovakia are available in a paper from Országh et al. (2001).

Recently more significant changes have been made to the hierarchy of the lower level taxa in the tribe Aedini (Reinert 2000, Reinert et al. 2004, 2006). Mosquito nomenclature follows the Fauna Europaea (Snow & Ramsdale 2007) as well as the revised checklist of European mosquitoes (Snow & Ramsdale 2003) and Reinert et al. (2006).