two-winged insects - insects having usually a single pair of functional wings (anterior pair) with the posterior pair reduced to small knobbed structures and mouth parts adapted for sucking or lapping or piercinghaltere, balancer, halter - either of the club-like rudimentary hind wings of dipterous insects; used for maintaining equilibrium during flight insect - small air-breathing arthropod Diptera, order Diptera - a large order of insects having a single pair of wings and sucking or piercing mouths; includes true flies and mosquitoes and gnats and crane flies fly - two-winged insects characterized by active flight bee killer, robber fly - swift predatory fly having a strong body like a bee with the proboscis hardened for sucking juices of other insects captured on the wing mosquito - two-winged insect whose female has a long proboscis to pierce the skin and suck the blood of humans and animals gnat - any of various small biting flies: midges; biting midges; black flies; sand flies fungus gnat - mosquito-like insect whose larvae feed on fungi or decaying vegetation |