Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: What is the largest type of mosquito?
Mosquitoes of the genus "Toxorhynchites" never drink blood. This genus includes the largest extant mosquitoes, the larvae of which prey on the larvae of other mosquitoes. These mosquito eaters have been used in the past as mosquito control agents, with varying success.
Mosquitoes carrying such arboviruses stay healthy because their immune systems recognizes the virions as foreign particles and "chop off" the virus's genetic coding, rendering it inert. Human infection with a mosquito-borne virus occurs when a female mosquito bites someone while its immune system is still in the process of destroying the virus's harmful coding. It is not completely known how mosquitoes handle eukaryotic parasites to carry them without being harmed. Data has shown that the malaria parasite "Plasmodium falciparum" alters the mosquito vector's feeding behavior by increasing frequency of biting in infected mosquitoes, thus increasing the chance of transmitting the parasite.
Missulena occatoria, known as the red-headed mouse spider, is found in Southern Australia, from open forests to desert shrublands. It is the largest (females up to 24 mm, males up to 12 mm) and most widely distributed "Missulena" species, because the spiderlings are wind-dispersed (ballooning). Normally this only occurs with araneomorph spiders, mygalomorph spiders normally disperse by walking. "Missulena" venom may be very toxic, but few cases of serious envenomation have been recorded. Most recorded bites only caused minor effects, with Australian funnel-web spider antivenom having proved effective as a treatment.
With a mass of approximately and a length of 5 centimetres (2.0 in), the bee hummingbird ("Mellisuga helenae") is the world's smallest bird species and the smallest warm-blooded vertebrate. Called the "zunzún" in its native habitat on Cuba, it is lighter than a Canadian or U.S. penny. It is said that it is "more apt to be mistaken for a bee than a bird". The bee hummingbird eats half its total body mass and drinks eight times its total body mass each day. Its nest is 3 cm across.
Other viral diseases like epidemic polyarthritis, Rift Valley fever, Ross River fever, St. Louis encephalitis, West Nile fever, Japanese encephalitis, La Crosse encephalitis and several other encephalitic diseases are carried by several different mosquitoes. Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) and Western equine encephalitis (WEE) occurs in the United States where it causes disease in humans, horses, and some bird species. Because of the high mortality rate, EEE and WEE are regarded as two of the most serious mosquito-borne diseases in the United States. Symptoms range from mild flu-like illness to encephalitis, coma and death.
The largest living snakes in the world, measured either by length or by weight, are various members of the Boidae and Pythonidae families. They include anacondas, pythons, and boa constrictors, which are all non-venomous constrictors. The longest "venomous" snake, with a length up to , is the king cobra, and the heaviest venomous snake is likely to be the Gaboon viper (which also has the longest fangs and delivers the largest amount of venom) or possibly the Eastern diamondback rattlesnake – all three of which reach maximum weights in the range of .
Common insects that prey on wasps include praying mantises, dragonflies, centipedes, beetles and moths. In fact, large wasps will even prey on smaller wasps. Spiders will also capture wasps in their webs and eat them. Predatory reptiles and amphibians, such as frogs, lizards, toads, and salamanders see the wasp as just another opportunistic meal and do not differentiate them from other insects, despite their feared sting. Birds that regularly consume bugs will also eat wasps. Other creatures that eat wasps, particularly mammals, are more interested in the larvae rather than the adults.
The organ pipe mud dauber ("Trypoxylon politum") is a predatory wasp in the family Crabronidae. They are fairly large wasps, ranging from 3.9–5.1 mm, and have been recorded to fly from May to September. Female and male are similar in colour, a shiny black with pale yellow to white hind hindtarsomere. The organ pipe mud dauber feeds mainly on three genera of spider: Neoscona, Araneus, and Eustala. Melittobia, a parasitoid wasp, is a common ectoparasite of "T. politum" prepupae. Other sources of parasitism include the Bombyliid fly Anthrax, Chrysidid wasps, and various species of scavenger flies (Miltogramminae). The tufted titmouse ("Parus bicolor") is a known predator of "T. politum", and may feed on them more commonly than previously thought as the holes made by the titmouse are similar in shape and size to those made by T. politum leaving the nest after pupation.
While comparing between various classes of animals, a different unit is used, body length per second for organisms. The fastest organism on earth, relative to body length, is the South Californian mite "Paratarsotomus macropalpis", which has a speed of 322 body lengths per second. The equivalent speed for a human running as fast as this mite would be . This is far in excess of the previous record holder, the Australian tiger beetle, "Cicindela eburneola", the fastest insect in the world relative to body size, which has been recorded at or 171 body lengths per second. The cheetah, the fastest land mammal, scores at only 16 body lengths per second while Anna's hummingbird has the highest known length-specific velocity attained by any vertebrate
Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and constitute the biological family Trochilidae. They are among the smallest of birds, most species measuring in length. Indeed, the smallest extant bird species is a hummingbird, the bee hummingbird weighing less than .
Plasmodium falciparum is a unicellular protozoan parasite of humans, and the deadliest species of "Plasmodium" that cause malaria in humans. It is transmitted through the bite of a female "Anopheles" mosquito. It is responsible for roughly 50% of all malaria cases. It causes the disease's most dangerous form called falciparum malaria. It is therefore regarded as the deadliest parasite in humans, causing 435,000 deaths in 2017. It is also associated with the development of blood cancer (Burkitt's lymphoma) and is classified as Group 2A carcinogen.
The heaviest beetle, indeed the heaviest insect stage, is the larva of the goliath beetle, "Goliathus goliatus", which can attain a mass of at least and a length of . Adult male goliath beetles are the heaviest beetle in its adult stage, weighing and measuring up to . Adult elephant beetles, "Megasoma elephas" and "Megasoma actaeon" often reach and .
Dinomyrmex is a monotypic genus of ant containing the species Dinomyrmex gigas or giant forest ant. "D. gigas" is a large species of ant, native to Southeast Asian forests. It is one of the largest ants in existence, measuring in at for normal workers, and for the soldiers. Honeydew makes up 90% of their diet, but they will also consume insects and bird droppings. The ant is an effective forager, utilizing both efficient communication and recruitment. A handful of these ants may meet at night to engage in what has been observed to be ritual battle. These fights can continue for several months.
The mite has been recorded at a speed of 322 body lengths per second (). This is far in excess of the previous record holder, the Australian tiger beetle "Cicindela eburneola", the fastest insect in the world relative to body size, which has been recorded at or 171 body lengths per second. The cheetah, the fastest land animal, which has been clocked at a peak of , scores at only 16 body lengths per second.
The largest recorded egg is from a whale shark, and was in size. Whale shark eggs typically hatch within the mother. At and up to , the ostrich egg is the largest egg of any living bird, though the extinct elephant bird and some dinosaurs laid larger eggs. The bee hummingbird produces the smallest known bird egg, which weighs half of a gram (around 0.02 oz). Some eggs laid by reptiles and most fish, amphibians, insects and other invertebrates can be even smaller.
An important discovery was made by Patrick Manson in 1877 that mosquito could transmit human filarial parasite. Inferring from such novel discovery Albert Freeman Africanus King proposed the hypothesis that mosquitoes were the source of malaria. In the early 1890s Manson himself began to formulate the complete hypothesis, which he eventually called the mosquito-malaria theory. According to Manson malaria was transmitted from human to human by a mosquito. The theory was scientifically proved by Manson's confidant Ronald Ross in the late 1890s. Ross discovered that malaria was transmitted by the biting of specific species of mosquito. For this Ross won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1902. Further experimental proof was provided by Manson who induced malaria in healthy human subjects from malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Thus the theory became the foundation of malariology and the strategy of control of malaria.
The largest living reptile, a representative of the order Crocodilia, is the saltwater crocodile ("Crocodylus porosus") of Southern Asia and Australia, with adult males being typically long. The largest confirmed saltwater crocodile on record was long, and weighed about . Unconfirmed reports of much larger crocodiles exist, but examinations of incomplete remains have never suggested a length greater than . A living specimen estimated at and has been accepted by the Guinness Book of World Records, but due to the difficulty of trapping and measuring a very large living crocodile, the accuracy of these dimensions has yet to be verified. A specimen caught alive in the Philippines in 2011 (now dead) was found to have measured in length.
The heaviest known cephalopod, and the largest living invertebrate, is the colossal squid. The largest recorded specimen of this species, caught in the Ross Sea in 2007, weighed . However, its beak is not the largest known from this species; even bigger colossal squid beaks have been recovered from the stomachs of sperm whales, indicating that this species can grow larger still.
The largest of the ants, and the heaviest species of the family, are the females of "Dorylus helvolus", reaching a length of . The ant that averages the largest for the mean size of the whole colony is "Dinoponera gigantea", averaging up to . Another ant that is native to Australia, "Myrmecia brevinoda", workers are reported to be on average and queens are more than in length.
The giant hutias are an extinct group of large rodents known from fossil and subfossil material in the West Indies. One species, "Amblyrhiza inundata", is estimated to have weighed between , big specimens being as large as an American black bear. This is twice as large as the capybara, the largest rodent living today, but still much smaller than "Josephoartigasia monesi", the largest rodent known. These animals were probably used as a food source by aboriginal humans. All giant hutias are in a single family, Heptaxodontidae, which contains no living species; this grouping seems to be paraphyletic and artificial, however.
Mosquito-borne diseases are currently most prevalent in East Africa, Latin America,  Southeast Asia, and India; however, emergence of vector-borne diseases in Europe have recently been observed. A weighted risk analysis demonstrated associations to climate for 49% of infectious diseases in Europe including all transmission routes. One statistical model predicts by 2030, the climate of southern Great Britain will be climatically-suitable for malaria transmission "Plasmodium vivax" malaria for 2 months of the year. By 2080 it is predicted that the same will be true for southern Scotland.
The oldest known mosquito with an anatomy similar to modern species was found in 79-million-year-old Canadian amber from the Cretaceous. An older sister species with more primitive features was found in Burmese amber that is 90 to 100 million years old. Two mosquito fossils have been found that show very little morphological change in modern mosquitoes against their counterpart from 46 million years ago. These fossils are also the oldest ever found to have blood preserved within their abdomens. Despite no fossils being found earlier than the Cretaceous, recent studies suggest that the earliest divergence of mosquitoes between the lineages leading to Anophelinae and Culicinae occurred 226 million years ago.
Most "Anopheles" mosquitoes are crepuscular (active at dusk or dawn) or nocturnal (active at night). Some feed indoors (endophagic), while others feed outdoors (exophagic). After feeding, some blood mosquitoes prefer to rest indoors (endophilic), while others prefer to rest outdoors (exophilic), though this can differ regionally based on local vector ecotype, and vector chromosomal makeup, as well as housing type and local microclimatic conditions. Biting by nocturnal, endophagic "Anopheles" mosquitoes can be markedly reduced through the use of insecticide-treated bed nets or through improved housing construction to prevent mosquito entry (e.g. window screens). Endophilic mosquitoes are readily controlled by indoor spraying of residual insecticides. In contrast, exophagic/exophilic vectors are best controlled through source reduction (destruction of the breeding sites).
The subfamily Culicinae is the largest subfamily of Culicidae, a family of Nematocera dipterans. There are 3,046 species of Culicinae mosquitoes, in 108 genera and 11 tribes. Members of the Culicinae subfamily are small flies with fore wings for flight and hind wings reduced to halteres for balance. The mosquitoes also have long, slender, legs and proboscis-style mouth parts for feeding on vertebrate blood or plant fluids. Only the females are blood feeders, requiring a high quality protein meal before they can oviposit. Because the mosquitoes are well adapted for finding hosts, the females can move quickly from one blood meal to another, and when injecting their saliva, can inject pathogens picked up from other hosts and thus efficiently spread disease.
The WRBU assists in conserving the NMNH Mosquito Collection, the largest mosquito collection in the world, with over 1.5 million specimens. The WRBU maintains and secures specimens, handles transactions including loans of material, improves the collection, provides assistance to Department of Entomology personnel, Smithsonian Institution Research Associates, visiting scientists, and mosquito researchers in locating and examining specimens in the collection.