Evolution
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 amber that is 90 to 100 million years old.
Genetic analyses indicate the Culicinae and Anophelinae clades may have diverged about 150 million years ago. The Old and New World Anopheles species are believed to have subsequently diverged about 95 million years ago.
The mosquito Anopheles gambiae is currently undergoing speciation into the M and S molecular forms. This means some pesticides that work on the M form will not work anymore on the S form.
Read more about this topic: Mosquito
Famous quotes containing the word evolution:
“The more specific idea of evolution now reached is—a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.”
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)
“Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.”
—Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)
“The evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)