Mosquitoes - scourge of the Earth?

breadmonkey

Can someone explain to me what these bastids' function in nature is? Would it really mess things up if we were somehow able to erradicate them.

I mean, all they seem to do is spread nasty diseases all over the world. I know that sounds a bit silly but they really are scum.

DrIndy

And they LOVE irish people on holidays.

What is the purpose of any organism? to survive and reproduce? Some organisms are nastier in doing so than others.

breadmonkey

What I meant was, what sort of food chain do they fit into etc. Who/what would suffer if they were eradicated?

Chucky

I'm not sure what food chain they fit into but they have just as much right to live as we do. The same equal right applies to the bacterium that currently resides in my gut to the cat that scratched me years ago.

breadmonkey

Ah yes, but that cat doesn't propogate horrible diseases. And I'm not saying they don't have a "right" to live, I'm just wondering would it have severe consequences for any other form of life if we could nuke them.

Chucky

Well, if we nuked 'em then yeh, we'd pretty much mess up other species with radiation.


You must remember that we are the most potent and widespread killers of life on this planet. If we were to be eradicated I'm sure the other animals, plants, and microorganisms would thrive better.


This is dangerously developing into an animal-rights issue, haha!

breadmonkey

Chucky, you're just being pedantic. I'm genuinely interested into where mozzies fit into things.

Chucky

I do not feel that I am being pedantic and I actually resent that remark. However, I am acutely aware that I should not have replied to this thread in the first place. My posts were not suited to the topic of the thread. So for that I apologise - Sorry.

Take care,
Kevster

the Guru

These little so called Bastid's are the scourge of my Life every time I leave the house I have to spray myself with repellent, or they will eat me alive, actually I got bit on the ankle yesterday and its starting to itch like hell.

What makes them go for certain types of people and not others.

Faith

I don't know, it's weird. I spent 5 weeks in Spain, never using repellent, and never got bitten, whereas other people got eaten alive. Maybe I've bad blood!

Wibbs

Same with me. I very rarely get bitten. Then again with the amount of toxins I've ingested, I suspect that's some deterrent.:D I read before that mossies prefer the smell of womens sweat in general as it contains more phosphorous and other compounds attractive to insects. It must be something else as well though as I know women who never get bitten and men who are bug buffet.

You might screw with the foodchain in unforeseen ways. Quite a few animals eat mosquitoes. In ireland trout go mad for them. swallows and bats also snap them up. I would suspect worldwide their loss would have some impact.

If you could wipe them out, or at least the bacterium that causes malaria, then you would have stopped the most dangerous animal on the planet. Mosquitoes kill more people than any other animal.

hoggy87

Wibbs wrote:

If you could wipe them out, or at least the bacterium that causes malaria, then you would have stopped the most dangerous animal on the planet. Mosquitoes kill more people than any other animal.

It's not a bacterium. Malaria is a sexually reproducing eukaryote - an intracellular parasite. Plasmodium falciparum is the malignant tertian malaria which is the most common.

ST*

Frogs, birds, and mosquito fish are partial to a few, and apparently bats, who are supposed to eat up to 500 of them an hour. Seemingly it's only the females of the species that you want to do away with, they suck blood. Always the females up to no good.

hoggy87

Yup, the female anopheles species.

Pet

Apparently (this is largely unfounded) if you take vitamin B-complex supplements and neem capsules for about a week or two before you go on holiday, the mosquitoes won't bother you.

I'm another one of those people that doesn't really get bitten by mosquitoes..

secret_squirrel

Read in the new scientist that they are very close to breeding/engineering a mosquito that cant carry the malaria parasite, there hopefully within our lifetime malaria will die out.

DrIndy

On the other hand, great strides have been made to eradicate malaria already. During the middle ages, malaria was endemic in the westminster basin of london and only after the 2nd world war was it eradicated from sicily. There are 7 species of mosquito in northern europe capable of transmitting malaria, so it may yet return!