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There are 3,500 known species of mosquito but most of those don’t bother humans at all, living off plant and fruit nectar.
It’s only the females from just 6 percent of species that draw blood from humans – to help them develop their eggs. Of these just half carry parasites that cause human diseases. But the impact of these 100 species is devastating.
There’s a constant effort to educate people to use treated nets and other tactics to avoid being bitten. But would it just be simpler to make an entire species of disease-carrying mosquito extinct?
Biologist Olivia Judson has supported “specicide” of 30 types of mosquito. She said doing this would save one million lives and only decrease the genetic diversity of the mosquito family by 1 percent. “We should consider the ultimate swatting,” she told the New York Times.
But are there any downsides to removing mosquitoes? According to Phil Lounibos, an entomologist at Florida University, mosquito eradication “is fraught with undesirable side effects”.
He says mosquitoes, which mostly feed on plant nectar, are important pollinators. They are also a food source for birds and bats while their young — as larvae — are consumed by fish and frogs. This could have an effect further up and down the food chain.
Read full, original post: Would it be wrong to eradicate mosquitoes?
