A 2025 study from Oxford University lists the subspecies Ceratopogonidae midges as "the most widely recognised and best-studied cocoa pollinators.

"[3] Ceratopogonidae are holometabolous, meaning their development includes four life stages: egg, larva, pupa, and imago or adult.

Their bites are painful, and can cause intensely itchy lesions[5] due to the body producing histamines against the proteins from the midges' saliva.

In particular, mosquito larvae have been investigated as common prey for biting midges in the genus Bezzia.

For example, experiments have been conducted on the species Bezzia nobilis that suggest their reliance on mosquito larvae as one source of prey.

Larvae of species in the Dasyheleinae subfamily are characterized by an anal segment with retractile posterior prolegs.

The oldest known member of the family is Archiaustroconops besti from the Purbeck Group of Dorset, England, dating to the Berriasian, around 142 million years ago.