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Mosquitoes! Ugh! Every instinct in my body immediately goes towards killing them when they’re in my presence. To me, and probably for most people, mosquitoes are pests who deserve to be eradicated.
Up until I wrote about dengue fever, I really believed that mosquitoes have no value in the world whatsoever.
To me, they were the equivalent of spooky vampires that deserve a stake driven through their hearts.
Boy, was I wrong!
Apparently, mosquitoes aren’t just pests per se. They too have some value. And a very important value that not everyone appreciates.
That probably won’t stop me from slapping a mosquito out of existence if it lands on me, but it will make me think more about their role in our environment.
Mosquitoes are Pests Who Hold Up the Food Chain
Apparently, mosquitoes are a crucial food source for many animals including bats, birds, dragonflies, fish, frogs, and other amphibians.
The animals listed above actively help in keeping the mosquito population down by eating both adult and larval forms. For example, bats and birds eat adult mosquitoes while the rest take care of the larva.
It is probably the dragonfly that is the mosquito’s enemy number one because both adult and larval forms also eat the mosquitoes in their adult or larval form. So, if mosquitoes are pests, dragonflies are the equivalent to mosquitoes.
Without mosquitoes, these animals would not be able to thrive as they depend on the insect as part of their primary food source.
Mosquitoes, not being powerful fliers, and also not particularly good swimmers, are easy prey to the animals listed.
Mosquitoes are Pests Who Moonlight as Bees
Well, maybe comparing them to bees is a far stretch but mosquitoes apparently are also good pollinators.
It’s probably common knowledge for everyone to know that it is only the female mosquito who drinks blood. But both the male and female mosquito feed on nectar. Nectar is essential for their survival. Without it, a mosquito will only live for 4 days.
Like bees, pollen sticks to the mosquito and is transferred from one flower to another. They help pollinate orchids, fruit plants and some arctic plants who don’t get visited by other insectoid pollinators.
Mosquitoes are Pests with a Massive Kill Count
I guess this justifies why everyone hates mosquitoes.
They are the physical embodiment of death. And they’re also pretty annoying as they buzz around while we try to sleep.
But seriously speaking, mosquitoes are important in keeping animal populations down. Perhaps this is the one benefit of them being disease-carrying animals. Their ability to transmit deadly diseases lead to massive death counts that help control the population of their victims.
We Might Have to End Up Living With Mosquitoes
While mosquitoes are undoubtedly dangerous to human health, their complete elimination could have cascading effects we don’t fully understand.
Many scientists argue for targeted control of disease-carrying species rather than complete eradication, focusing on the roughly 200 species that bite humans out of the 3,500+ known mosquito species.
This balanced understanding has led to more sophisticated control methods, like:
- Genetic modification approaches
- Targeted biological control
- Species-specific interventions
- Environmental management techniques
It’s a classic example of how even organisms we consider pests can have complex and important roles in global ecosystems.
Scientists are currently exploring how mosquitoes can be important in genetic research. Their saliva compounds are currently being studied for their anesthetic and blood thinning capabilities. Mosquitoes are also being studied for culture drone technology flight capabilities.
Who knows, maybe a few more decades from now and we’ll have vaccines attributed to mosquitoes or highly sophisticated drone technology for espionage purposes.
My view towards mosquitoes won’t change overnight. I will automatically slap one if one lands on me. That’s because Dengue is a health threat in the Philippines.
I may change my view on total eradication and settle for population control through various means. The least I’d probably do is ensure that my surroundings don’t attract massive populations of mosquitoes or contribute to their population growth.
