When you think of the world’s deadliest animal, what comes to mind? Is it lions who kill an estimated 200 people per year? Or perhaps you think of snakes who kill over 130,000 people each year. Maybe you are an out of the box thinker and say humans are more deadly than any animal through roughly 400,000 homicides each year.
Far deadlier than lions, snakes and even humans are mosquitoes, a tiny deadly creature.
Mosquitoes are more than an annoyance. They are responsible for the death of more than 700,000 people each year through the spread of disease, as well as an estimated 300 million cases of mosquito-borne illness. Most of these deaths are from malaria which is spread by the female Anopheles mosquito. Anopheles in Greek means “good for nothing.” This made me wonder, are mosquitoes good for anything? I tried to find some redeeming information for mosquitoes. The list is short.
The primary food for both male and female mosquitoes is nectar. They act as pollinators in the ecosystem and are an important pollinator for broad leaf orchids in the Northeastern U.S. and Canada. It is only the female mosquitoes that consume blood, in order to get nutrients to produce eggs, and only a small percentage of mosquito species spread disease to humans. It would take 1.2 million mosquito bites to consume all of your blood, so as annoying as they are, they are unlikely to suck you dry. Mosquitoes are an important food source for some animals, especially certain species of fish and dragonflies. The final benefit I found is that scientists developed a less painful hypodermic needle by studying mosquitoes.
With so few benefits I wondered what harm would it cause the environment if mosquitoes suddenly went extinct. Surprisingly some scientists believe not much harm would be done. The biggest impact would likely be felt in the Arctic tundra where mosquitoes make up a significant portion of the biomass and are a food source for migratory birds. Most other places would likely feel an initial impact on species pollinated by mosquitoes or that prey on mosquitoes but probably would quickly recover, switching to different pollinators or sources of prey.
I don’t think any nature lovers will be rushing to defend the mosquito any time soon. While I am certainly no fan of chemical sprays or traps that kill truly beneficial insects, I would love to spend a summer free from the itching and swatting and now wondering about some potentially transmitted disease.
Crystal Kelly is a feature writer for Bizarre Bytes with those unusual facts that you only need to know for Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy or to stump your in-laws.
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