Culicomorpha

The Culicomorpha are an infraorder of Nematocera, including mosquitoes, black flies, and several extant and extinct families of insects. They originated 176 million years ago, in the Early Jurassic period. There are phylogenetic patterns that are used to interpret bionomic features such as differences in the nature of blood-feeding by adult females, daytime or nighttime feeding by adult females, and occurrence of immature stages in aquatic habitats.