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Serious question, is there anything good about mosquitos? They're famously the most 'dangerous' organisms to humans thanks to their spread of malaria, and per
by CatWChainsaw 4y ago
Serious question, is there anything good about mosquitos? They're famously the most 'dangerous' organisms to humans thanks to their spread of malaria, and per the article at least some species are tailored to prey on humans over other animals. Their spit is what makes you itchy, and when they need to detach from your skin they piss on you to make it easier.
- bagels 4y agoDoes it matter if they serve some role in ecology? We have extinct so many species for no good reason at all, might as well add one more to the list when done for some beneficial purpose.
- pvaldes 4y agoYes, it matter. Would we remove the brake pedal of a car while driving? This is the same idea. We are talking about removing the main wire of entire ecosystems without a clue of the real outcome. Could have some benefits? yes, it could, but the nice extra space for the feet wouldn't worth the danger. An unfixable waterfall of problems and many local economical collapses would be guaranteed.
- Fatnino 4y agoWe've intentionally made the smallpox virus extinct. The "unfixable waterfall of problems and many local economic collapses" that have resulted since then are legendary /s
- pvaldes 4y agoAnd mosquitoes are the same as pox viruses now?
- Fatnino 4y agoNo, one of them has caused many more human deaths than the other.
- pvaldes 4y agoSo what? Still the wrong metric to compare both organisms
- Fatnino 4y agoWhy? An organism that causes millions of human deaths needs to be wiped out. This is an evolutionary imperative. If a species (humans) get out-competed to death at large scale it will go extinct.
- pvaldes 4y ago> An organism that causes millions of human deaths needs to be wiped out. Not necessarily; that would be suicidal. And take in mind that you are perfectly describing humans (and dogs)
- Fatnino 4y agoAnd snakes. But mosquitoes blow the rest of these out of the water with staggering numbers of human deaths on their hands. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_animals_to_humans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_animals_to...
- zvr 4y agoHere's a podcast episode dealing with this very question: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rcpf https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rcpf "The Mosquito Conundrum" from Series 17 of The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry
- simcop2387 4y agoThey're food for fish and other animals. That's about all I can think of that gives them a use of any kind.
- chrisco255 4y agoI think bats favor them. Lots of birds eat them too. But is there anything "good" about any creature? Everything just exists for its own survival.
- mattigames 4y agoIts clear that "good" or "bad" in this context means if it helps in any way any other species (including us) or environment, and given that it stings a lot of animals causing them some pain it already has some points on "bad".
- vocram 4y ago> causing them some pain it already has some points on "bad". Humans have quite a few bad points here as well.
- version_five 4y ago> it stings a lot of animals causing them some pain Isn't pushing back on animals, in particular apex predator types, "good" in some natural sense. Making areas uninhabitable (except I assume for species that have evolved, or will evolve, some kind of symbiosis) seems like an important role. Any lifeform that gets an open field will just grow until they run out of food or invite disease or whatever. Unfavorable parasites or whatever you want to call them are an important part of the balance, even if they are clearly bad from the perspective of whoever they're feeding on.
- swatcoder 4y agoThey transfer food from large animals near the top of the food chain to small animals nearer the bottom, by air and over a range of several miles. They might not be the only thing that can do the job, but it’s an important job.
- buu700 4y agoIs this actually a useful effect of mosquitoes? It seems like any organisms that feed on waste and corpses would accomplish the same thing but better.
- chongli 4y agoYeah exactly. Beetles, worms, and fungi do the job quite nicely. We don’t need mosquitoes at all. When they’re gone other species will pick up the slack.
- brap 4y agoThis is a very interesting way to think about mosquitoes.
- DiggyJohnson 4y agoIsn’t the top of the food chain where we see the biggest thread to biodiversity. This reminds me of my favorite term from any college course: “charismatic megafauna.”
- bombcar 4y agoI’ve heard they do some percentage of pollination.
- zionic 4y agoNot at all. Only a small fraction of mosquito species bite humans, we could eliminate them without impacting the environment negatively.
- zzo38computer 4y agoI think that mosquitoes should not be eliminated, whether they bite humans or not. The other kind of animals (including human) can live. You (and other living thing in this world) can (and should) defend yourself but that is not the right to destroy everything. What is good of human? To be bitten by mosquito. What is good of mosquito? To be bitten by fish (according to another comment below). What is good of fish? To be bitten by human. (Of course, this is overly the simplification, but I hope to explain the point that I am trying to make.)
- DiggyJohnson 4y agoAbsolute nihilism of all living things probably isn’t as obvious a philosophy as your comment makes it seem. If nothing in life is valuable, including life itself, what gives? Do you still value less suffering over more suffering? Am I misunderstanding your perspective?
- zzo38computer 4y ago> Absolute nihilism of all living things probably isn’t as obvious a philosophy as your comment makes it seem. I do not quite understand your comment, but Wikipedia says: "Nihilism [...] is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. Different nihilist positions hold variously that human values are baseless, that life is meaningless, that knowledge is impossible, or that some set of entities do not exist or are meaningless or pointless." I do not seem to be of this view. I do not reject objective truth, etc, but I am of the opinion that the Absolute is inexpressible. (Therefore, effectively anything you will communicate (including these comments that I am writing) will be a simplification; if it was Absolutely everything, then you would not write nor even know all of it.) Life is not meaningless, and truth, knowledge, morality, etc, is not meaningless, but its meaning/existence is related to everything else meaning/existence, or else it is nothing at all. Within certain systems, you will have certain consequences of them, which are meaningful within them, by their relations (which are inevitable, and cannot be avoided), and in a larger system comprising them, or a smaller one, will be likewise correspondent. (For example, any statement valid in intuitionistic logic is also valid in classical logic, although really since they are two different things, you must define how to convert them (which, in this case, you can merely use the same symbols and it will work, but that is because it is the convention to use the same ones and it will work, because they correspond to each other in such a way, that it will work). If you add/multiply natural numbers, the same corresponding result is as though you are adding/multiplying integers, reals, or finite discrete categories.) (Other example is computer programs, too; they are also relation by the other programs in the computer and by the hardware I/O and software I/O, too. Without I/O (or if the program is not executed, or at least the source code read by someone who has printed it out), then the I/O of the program on the computer is not meaningful in relation to the umbworld, even though the program may be meaningful in relation to itself.) (And, likewise, also living things; which also consists of biology which consists of chemistry which consists of physics which consists of mathematics, too.) (And, yet, these things (numbers, living things, biology, chemistry, etc) are not even real "things" but only one way to define them in relation to the other things; it is the relations between things which are more "real" than the things themself, which are merely one way to define them. For example, a ball on a table is a ball but it is also many atoms. If you break the ball with a hammer then the atoms are not broken even though the ball is broken.) > If nothing in life is valuable, including life itself, what gives? Life is valuable. Things (whether this "things" is the world, or the life or some parts of the life, or numbers (or other mathematical objects), or even if it is the parts of the laws of physics) do not work in isolation, though. A life, whether they are human or fish or insects or trees (etc), is not a bad and a worthless thing, even though they affect each other. Something might be good for one thing and bad for another thing (however you consider a "thing", whether you ignore the passage of time (or, alternatively, spacetime) or not), but it is to be avoided if it is bad in general. Any life will have both help and harm (and, both at the same time, since it is not as simple as it seems); that is life. If any animal will eat a animal/plant that will harm that animal/plant, or if you defend yourself then this might harm whoever you defend yourself against, or sometimes the harm is caused by accident (in which case, hopefully is possibility to learn), but that means that creature is harmed (or that you are harmed). Each one, each part, is inevitably harm/help. (If they are not affecting each other like that then nothing is ever worth anything at all. But, everythings is affecting each other in this universe, so it is worth everything, after all. This is true in biology as well as in mathematics (including platonic mathematics), physics, theology, etc. If a mathematical object somehow has no properties, theorems, relation to other mathematical objects, addition/multiplication with other numbers, etc, then it would be bad and worthless, but of course mathematical objects do have properties, theorems, etc.) Anyone should try to avoid harm (although you (and the others animals) must eat/defense), and you should avoid to harm the world/life/environment; it should not be only beneficial to humans, or only beneficial to you, but it should be non-harmful to the world (including humans, trees, mosquitoes, and other animals/plants), to the degree that it can be achieved. (Likewise, in addition to not beinly only beneficial to humans, it also should not be only harmful to humans, either. If you say that human is good and others is bad, then that is no good, but other way around is also no good, either.) You may try to defend yourself if a mosquito try to bite you, if you want to do; but you should not try to eliminate mosquitoes; they are right to live in this world too, as are humans, trees, etc. > Do you still value less suffering over more suffering? Yes, but you cannot take "less suffering" and "more suffering" in isolation, nor should it be limited to humans, or to animals that experience pain, or to animals in general, etc. > Am I misunderstanding your perspective? Probably, and probably it is because I am not communicating it clearly enough. Please read my other comment (32535273) for some more things that I had written about the topic that I was replying to, though.
- comonoid 4y agoWater-born(?) insects transfer fertilizing elements from water back to the land.
- fennecfoxen 4y agoBorne, as in, 'carried', derivative of the verb 'to bear'
- Bud 4y agoThis might be a bit brutal, but to be honest: yeah. They kill a lot of humans. And humans very much need to be killed. There are way too many of us, and we're doing an awfully good job of wiping out Earth's biodiversity and long-term carrying capacity.
- xen2xen1 4y agoThanos enters the building..
- cm2012 4y agoGreat idea! Maybe start with yourself first though before sacrificing others.
- beebeepka 4y agoI do believe there are too many of us humans on this planet but something tells me we can do much better than culling ourselves.
- palata 4y agoYeah waiting is probably good enough, at this point.
- mmmpop 4y agoYeah but is that justice?
- 11235813213455 4y agoit's more natural selection than being rammed down on your bike by a car
- zzo38computer 4y agoYes, there are too many humans; the human population is too much. But, that does not mean that you have to kill everyone; that is no good. However, if you eliminate all of the mosquitoes, then that is also no good. You must have right to defend yourself (from humans and from nonhumans), and mosquitoes and other animal also must have the right to defend themself (from humans and from nonhumans). However, this is not to be done by eliminating populations, or by starting by attacking all of the animals/plants. Animal also might attack other animal/plants for food also will be needed though, including human and nonhuman. (And then, if there is an attack then also will be the defense.) Humans should stop damaging the environment/world (including the parts of the environment/world which are harmful to humans). Many human hopefully should be having less children too, in order to reduce future population; that is better than committing suicide or by having a war. (While, some other animal (and possibly some plants too, but not human (at this time)) are endangered species and might need to have more children.)
- saiya-jin 4y agoIf you take selfish human-only view, nothing good there. But there is tons of them and they are important part of food chain even if they are tiny. If we could selectively just eliminate those 2-3 sub-species that transfer malaria, dengue and say zika or yellow fever from human perspective the negative impact on environment compared to positive impact on often weakest and poorest part of mankind if... well incomparable. Ecosystem would take a hit but I can't seriously put half a million of human lives yearly, often small children, against some blip in our environment, which would in few years balance itself out into new equilibrium (probably with more insect of some other type taking the place) and choose insects. What I would eliminate outright without any remorse are ticks. They are not that important in food chain, and are scourge for both humans and many animals.
- hedora 4y agoApparently there's an approved Lyme disease vaccine in the US, but they decided there isn't a sufficient market, and stopped production. Now if we could selectively just eliminate those 2-3 sub-species of bean counters responsible for this sort of decision...
- scottlamb 4y agoI once saw an article asking biologists this very question. I wish I could find it. What I recall is: * some species of mosquitos are an important part of ecosystems, e.g. a big chunk of biomass in tundra regions. (I didn't even know there were any mosquitos there!) * but the specific species that carry malaria: no. They gave some general platitudes about niches and every species being important... Almost. These ones, kill them all. The important stuff these mosquitos do can be done by other insects. Edit: https://www.nature.com/articles/466432a https://www.nature.com/articles/466432a looks pretty similar to what I read. Either this one is slightly more nuanced or my memory dropped some of the nuance.
- s0rce 4y agoMosquitos are notoriously bad in Alaska and Northern Canada, I assume other areas are similar.
- sn41 4y agoyes... I come from the tropics. I have always fantasized abput escaping to Alaska where 'there would be no mosquitoes'. But then I saw Grizzly Man. More frightening than the bear was the fact that the couple were wearing nets to cover their faces from mosquitoes.
- s0rce 4y agoEven in the mountains in California a bug head net is a staple on my backpacking trips
- bamboozled 4y agoIs there any chance this is due to a lack of natural predators or something ?
- eigenman 4y agoOnly on a short term basis. As the snow is melting, this creates a large number of small, shallow ponds where mosquitoes can breed without being eaten by fish. As the year progresses, these ponds dry up, reducing habitat to those permanent lakes which likely have fish present that predate the water part of the mosquito lifecycle. Moreover, there is a lag introduced by the predator-prey dynamics, in particular short lived species like dragonflies and mosquito hawks that predate the flying stage. Thus, it can take a few weeks for these predators to start reducing the number of mosquitoes. Source: I’m hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and I have been swarmed by mosquitoes on several occasions. Mosquitoes were particularly bad in Yosemite in late June and Washington in early August; mosquitoes are finally letting up now that theses processes are taking place. Let me just say mosquitoes make the most of that interval before predators dominate.
- brianpan 4y agoSerious answer in the form of a question: What is good about humans or dogs or trees? What does good even mean- how do you define it? Good in what sense?
- barrenko 4y agoDogs peeing on trees in cities also has a net negative effect.
- nkrisc 4y agoI generally share the same view but it seems pretty clear to me they’re asking from the perspective of human benefit.
- bawolff 4y agoI think the question was ecological benefit not human benefit.
- 11235813213455 4y agogood is what help maintaining life as a whole, so a human with a high carbon footprint is more bad than good, but a lizard or a bird plays a role in the ecosystem, and at least doesn't have a negative pollution impact, so they're not bad trees: that's the symbol of life, of usefulness, they help to improve life in the ground and around, hold humidity, store carbon for most of them, are homes of many species, provide food, ... dogs or any pets: not useful at all for the ecosystem, actually detrimental from their food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_food#Impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_food#Impact and other services dedicated to them and their direct negative impact on the local wild life mosquitoes: useful because their larva feed a large ecosystem, they also feed other insects, they also pollinate
- Shugarl 4y agoGood if it's useful to us humans, bad if it's harmful.
- 11235813213455 4y ago
- xen2xen1 4y agoDisease is a form of population control in a survival of the fittest sort of way. They're probably much more useful than we'd like to think in the long run. Scarily, we're replacing all those mechanisms with us..
- rowanG077 4y agoYeah I sometimes worry that we will be creating a much more fragile human race because of modern tech. Will C-section over thousands of years cause us to be unable to procreate naturally. Many genetic abnormalities that used to mean you die now easily allow you to reach the age you can have children, keeping those genes in the gene pool. It's kind of scary. And I say that as someone that would have died the first day on this earth without modern medicine. On the other hand there is a good chance we master genetic modification to such a level we could just manually fix our genes.
- peaslock 4y agoPerhaps they induce immunity to novel viruses by transferring them in small doses between very different animals. Just guessing though.
- _8j50 4y agoThey reduce the number of the most harmful parasite: Humans.
- modzu 4y agothere is a parallel universe out there without mosquitos, and everything is FINE
- pvaldes 4y ago> there is a parallel universe out there without mosquitos, and everything is FINE ...on TV, and videogames. Lets return to the real world. Can you name one terrestrial ecosystem that works currently without any Diptera?.
- modzu 4y agoyou see what happens is without the skeeters, you dont have any food for the frogs, and without the frogs you lose the birds, and no birds means no cats and no cats means no pets and no pets means human suffering. or is there something else?
- cultofmetatron 4y agothink of bats. people generally don't give a crap about bats. Most of the ways we are able to justify their conservation efforts to the masses is that they "eat their weight in mosquitos. a Lot of animals would lose momentum for conservation if we didn't have a united enemy.
- forgotmypw17 4y agoFor one thing, mosquitoes live an entire life underwater before emerging into flight. Most of the time people ask this question, they forget that part about how much underwater life mosquitoes feed and how much they contribute to the biome there.
- LoveMortuus 4y agoMy zoology teacher once said that only female mosquitoes bite humans for blood, so there no reason to kill the males. Hahaha, like I'm going to check what gender the mosquitoes are that are buzzing around my head and waking me up at the middle of the night.
- tresqotheq 4y ago>Serious question, is there anything good about mosquitos? Is there anything good about human beings? Have they done anything that is good for rest of the planet?
- herodoturtle 4y agoOur buried corpses feed the worms! ^_^
- rcfox 4y agoModern corpses get stuffed with cotton and pumped full of formaldehyde, then placed in a box. Worms probably wouldn't want us if they could get to us.
- romseb 4y agoWhat if humans manage to deflect an asteroid in a few decades that would otherwise kill off 95% of life on the planet?
- tresqotheq 4y agoIf you are gonna "what if", please "what if" mosquitoes as well...
- msaharia 4y agoHow about a control function on human population? (For nature as a system, it might as well count as a benefit)
- yboris 4y agoThe question was "is there anything good about mosquitos?" and your response is "control ... human population". Which I hope you know happens through pain and suffering of the affected individual and those around them. This doesn't seem like an acceptable price to pay, even if you think decreasing the population is a good thing. Would you want to revise your opinion?
- ETH_start 4y agoI suspect they increase gene transfer both intra and inter-specifically.