These mosquitoes or gnats - the terms are synonymous - belong to the family Culicidae and the genus Anopheles, which was first classified by Meigen in 1818.
Many of the adults are bloodsuckers (Tabanidae, Culicidae, &c.); others are parasitic in their larval stage (Oestridae, &c.).
K, sucking Diptera, belonging to various families, but now by common consent restricted to those known to naturalists as Culicidae, or gnats.
In dividing the Culicidae into genera reliance is placed chiefly upon characters derived from the scales on the three divisions of the body and on the wings.
Culicidae are by no means confined to lowlying districts, and have even been met with in the Himalayas at an altitude of 13,000 feet.