Along with ticks, mosquitoes are among the most unnecessary animals for most people. Except perhaps for “Big Pharma”, because they are known to have released vaccine mosquitoes to secretly vaccinate unwilling people ( we reported ).
But otherwise? Earthworms keep the soil loose, snails eat decaying parts of plants, ants are the health police and bumblebees... they just look cute, but mosquitoes? Would anything change if all mosquitoes suddenly disappeared? Yes!

Deadly bloodsuckers

In our latitudes we can still count ourselves lucky that the little bloodsuckers simply poke us and then run away again (if we don't catch them first). In other countries, however, a mosquito bite can be quite dangerous.

Do you think sharks are the biggest killers? Pah! There were just 137 shark attacks worldwide , while the insect kills hundreds of thousands of people and sickens millions more every year, making the mosquito the deadliest animal in the world .

There are over 3,500 different species of mosquitoes , and they have existed for over 100 million years, so they are a really old species. You might think that your sandwich in the back of the fridge that you “want to finish at some point” is old, but mosquitoes are much older - and therefore an important part of nature!

Mosquitoes pollinate plants

You may not believe it, but there are only 100 species of mosquitoes that are actually interested in your blood - and only the females. The small buzzers are mainly pollinators and feed on flower nectar.

Just like bees or butterflies, the insects transfer pollen from flower to flower as they feed on nectar, which fertilizes the plants and allows them to form seeds and reproduce. The female mosquitoes are not always keen on blood, but actually only when they want to lay eggs, because they then need the blood because of the proteins it contains.

So if you kill a mosquito that is drinking from you, you kill an expectant mother! Do you feel better now?

They are an important part of the food chain

That sounds nasty, but nature isn't really cuddly: Another important reason for the existence of insects is that they are a great source of food for other animals, both as adults and in their larval form.

From dragonflies and turtles to bats and birds - including hummingbirds, which rely on small flying insects and spiders as their main source of food - they all feed, not exclusively, but to a greater or lesser extent, on mosquitoes. If this food source disappears, it could become problematic for some animal species.

Hummingbirds are a good example: They feed on flower nectar, insects and spiders. If there were no more mosquitoes, not only would hummingbirds have less to eat, but so would spiders, which would lead to fewer spiders getting fed and surviving. So there would be fewer spiders for the hummingbirds. Do you recognize the problem?

A world without mosquitoes

Since there are so many species of mosquitoes, we can only make hypothetical assumptions, but let's just imagine that all mosquitoes would disappear in one fell swoop. What would happen then?

An ecological niche would be created. Many animals would be missing at least some of their food, but over time this would compensate. Perhaps. But it can also trigger a snowball effect that messes everything up, something that is impossible to predict.

In the worst case, the ecological niche is replaced by another animal species that can be even more annoying or deadly. Maybe spiders will start wanting to drink blood because mosquitoes will no longer fly into their webs? Maybe ticks get wings? Do we want to risk flying blood-drinking spiders and ticks?

Okay, that was just a worst-case horror scenario (which would also be a cool script for an Asylum film ), but the point is: The disappearance of these insects could not destroy many ecosystems, but it could really disrupt them - and that is not really worth it.

Conclusion

Yes, mosquitoes can be annoying, and none of us like being bitten by them. But instead of thinking about how to eradicate these insects, it is better to research how we can better protect ourselves against mosquitoes, but without interfering with nature.

It is also possible and has already been tested in practice to eradicate only certain species of mosquitoes: In an experiment, millions of mosquitoes of the Aedes aegypti species, which are responsible for the transmission of the Zika virus and dengue fever, were genetically modified . The males received a gene that prevented the next generation from reproducing.

The scientists released these genetically modified mosquitoes at a location in the Cayman Islands and found that the number of these insects decreased by 96 percent compared to other nearby areas. Similar experiments have produced similar results. Unfortunately, despite the promising results, these methods are not suitable for complete global eradication because millions of modified mosquitoes are required for a small area.

So if you are bitten by a mosquito again soon, don't wish it would be eradicated.
Think of all the plant and animal species that make up a complex ecosystem, with all species dependent on each other for our planet to survive and thrive.

Article image: Pixabay
Sources: Barefoot Mosquito , Forbes , National Wildlife Federation , Earth Touch , Forest Preserve District Willcounty


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