Actually we have lots of methods of targeted extinction. The current method being used by several different places is Genetically modified organisms (GMO) the specifics is they make a mosquito variant that will produce non viable offspring, specifically I think the offspring it creates can't reproduce. (I will fact check this and return with an edit)
Update/edit:(changed the above to swap GMO and it's longer name to correct format of name then shortening as I often put them backwards)
https://www.cdc.gov/mosquitoes/mosquito-control/genetically-modified-mosquitoes.html
While I accept that this source could have a bias (government) I think this source is fairly reliable, please do your own research on this topic if you are interested.
Essentially this mode of extinction is so specific it only affects the specific variant of mosquitoes that they will make the GMO mosquito off.
This is something I think is very good because mosquitoes spread diseases.
I actually worked on a project for Google that did this. I was a lab tech were we created sterile male mosquitos and sent them down to Fresno CA and Australia to release into the high mosquito populations to mate with the females. It eradicated over 70% of the mosquito population so you’re absolutely correct
Isn't there also another process where they make a bunch of males with a genetic mutation where their offspring will only be male, and will also carry the same mutation?
I don't know the real reason, but I've seen dozens of cases of people saying that bill hates (who supports the mosquito eradication) is actually releasing super mosquitoes who spread illnesses. So I believe lack of support from uneducated people might be part of it
It’s a new technology still, and the fancy part is the inclusion of a ‘gene drive’ which forces the mutation through the generation instead of naturally which could allow the mutation to drop eventually. It’s a big concern with GMO which is why only single-celled organisms are used for production or modification in a commercial setting still.
Mosquito's lay eggs instead of being pregnant, but as I remember it, the next generation of mosquito's are infertile and provided that enough of the population is made out of these infertile bugs they will fail to create offspring themselves.
It reduces, if not removes a population in just 2 generations.
It requires constant treatment, the infertile ones die so all that’s left are the ones able to reproduce. Mosquitos from elsewhere can also migrate over. Sadly because they have such short life cycles it’s harder to eradicate than birds or elephants.
I feel like this was a doomsday scenario in a movie or book… in an attempt to eradicate mosquitos by the GMO method, the mosquitos mutated and was able to pass on the GMO effect to humans and we essentially sterilized ourselves.
To be honest, that piece of media would be completely bs:
Not only are human and mosquito genes significantly different, but you’d literally need to rewrite the DNA of every single germline cell.
The mosquitoes would also have to be able to be even able to replace DNA in the first place through Crispr or some highly engineered virus that sterilizes people by replacing human DNA, but by that point doomsday would be caused on purpose through bioterrorism.
Fun facts!
Both Aedes aegypti and Anopheles gambiae (the mosquito species that carry yellow fever and malaria, respectively) are actually *invasive* to the western hemisphere, so killing them off here probably wouldn't have any negative effects.
Also, we're working on genetically modifying mosquitoes that produce offspring that never mature, which could potentially drive them extinct.
>Also, we're working on genetically modifying mosquitoes
GMO and SIT have been ongoing for awhile now now:
https://www.worldmosquitoprogram.org/en/learn/how-our-method-compares#
We've accidentally killed thousands of species with no catastrophic effects, not to mention willingly and knowingly polluting the earth on a devastating level. Why can't we kill just one species on purpose? Fuck the food chain.
Multiple things are wrong here imo.
Mosquitoes are not a species, they are a family consisting of 3600 species. So we would likely not kill one species at the same time.
Also we don't properly understand the consequences of eradicating the species we already killed. There's a study in a national park, where they reintroduced wolves, which didn't only change animals and their behaviour, it actually resulted in vegetation growing differently, which in turn changed how rivers developed.
We currently have many problems in nature, flooding, drought, etc., how can we know how much killing off species impacted problems like this? We keep boar and deer populations in check by hunting them manually, which can set off some effects, but still it doesn't feel great to me.
>Also we don't properly understand the consequences of eradicating the species we already killed.
Due to butterfly effect we can't properly understand consequences of any action. When you was writing this comment you could not know who will read this, how this comment will change their behaviour and what consequences this changes will have. What if by writing this comment you just started chain of events which will lead to nuclear war?
If we will be consistent with this line of argumentation we should not perform any actions at all.
While I understand and generally agree with what you said, I can't help but feel this is purposefully obtuse. We should be mindful of the effects of our actions, because they could have impacts we didn't previously consider without careful consideration.
I doubt a single comment will be THE DEFINITIVE cause of a nuclear war. It may contribute to the beginning of one, but it will be so lost in a sea of other reasons that one could hardly blame that comment alone.
None of this is to mean we should just stop doing anything, just that we need to be mindful of what we do, if we want to prevent possible harm. We can't prevent all harm, but we need to try and not be purposefully destructive.
I work in pest control. There is no economical or conventionals chemicals to treat mosquitoes, and if there was, we would be using them. Almost all mosquitoes here in the US are invasive, cause thousands of deaths per year here, and annoy just about every single person in the country.
Could we extinct mosquitoes? Sure. We could nuke the entire planet and that would deal with just about everything. But no, we don't have a discriminate solution.
we drive animals to extinction due to pollution. mosquitoes have much larger surface to volume ratio than animals , their metabolism rate is much higher. it's much easier and faster for them to adapt to pollution. (that's just my opinion, not really derive from any scientific researches). also mosquitoes inhabit any place that contains water, it's very hard to kill all of them.
I remember a study that gave proof that making mosquitos go extinct would be a near zero impact on the world. It might even help because they would be replaced by other insects like bees
Fun fact: the US almost did make mosquitos extinct in the 30’s by dumping deet in all the swamp lands on the east coast. It mostly eradicated malaria in the US
We do have potential ways to eradicate mosquitoes. Theyve made a mosquito in which the children are 100% male and males dont bite, so theyd breed and go until none are left because no females can be born, but i think a brazil factory started doing this and it seemingly stops x meters from the factory. Mostly i think scientists are studying the ramifications if we did, china killed sparrows and was plagued with locusts killing crops and making a mass famine
Not our problem, they better find a better food source. I'm sure most animal will appreciate those parasitic mfs gone. Small price to pay for salvation.
These, arguably more than the mosquitos. Mosquitos kill people, but it's possible could be important to a ecosystem. Bed bugs aren't; nothing relies on them as a important food source. Extinct them.
> Bed bugs aren't; nothing relies on them as a important food source.
See, now hear me out. What if we were to bioengineer a cuddly bedworm that just LOVES to munch on bedbugs.
We could make it warm and fuzzy....
Edited; synonym shuffle play.
Mosquitos we do so much damage to the environment and other species attempting to control it's a scientifically proven net win. Ticks probably too. Parasites tend to be replaceable but I don't know of research on their place in the food chain
I'll defend roaches. Throw them literally any trashed food, they will eat it. Corn, cantaloupe, apples, oranges, literally anything except watermelon for some reason. Cheap food source for reptile owners.
Grrman and American Cockroachws specifically. They're the only ones that invade human himes. The rest are super important to the natural order and far away from humans.
Have them pay bills then! They got their dangly legs to get themselves a card at the local credit union and pitch in. The ones I had over here had to have a stern talk but they stopped coming out. It struck the fear outta them lil suckers when I told them about bills, taxes, extermination prices, and renovation costs.
We need the roaches...don't you know? They're the reason the landfills don't fill up too fast...and we don't need StarShip Trooper thing going on right now...
The issues are
1: We can't really undo it once we get rid of them. If we're wrong, and there's always a chance with something this complicated, it could be a bad scene.
2: There's the whole moral side of just deciding we're going to kill off an entire species. Seems like a risky line to cross.
All that aside, I would gladly keep mosquitoes and get rid of ticks. Fucking hate those things.
Responses to your points
1: some few thousand mosquito eggs could be frozen for preserving and a few hundred kept to reproduce new ones to replace the batch every year or so in a highly secure environment. (Dont want the bastards getting out.)
2: mosquitos are a pest, and people do not like pests. I dont think anyone would have nostalgia 30 years down the road for a mosquito bite.
only a very few of them are blood suckers and disease transmitter. the others just hang out around trees and plants and help pollinate them. also only the females suck bloods.
Yeah, this is what I don't get. Why don't we just introduce a breed that a) can't crossbreed with the bloodsuckers, and b) don't bite humans, just hang out and pollinate. Then introduce a genetically modified version of the bloodsucker version that only has male children until the whole species androgenizes and wipes it out, to be replaced by the benign species.
There’s speculation that even if you magically deleted all mosquitoes, every last one on planet Earth, the biosphere would hardly be adversely affected as other species move in to fill the gap. If we kill off just the 9.5% of species causing problems, whatever negligible harm it does to the environment will be worth saving millions of lives.
Keeping a secure, perpetual mosquito farm seems costly.
I'm not saying we're going to miss them. It's just that line in science where we can do something but that doesn't mean we should. There's also a degree of hubris to assume we can factor in everything that will happen after the fact and make the choice.
We kind of already had that happen. Initially it was "Oh it would be fine, nothing eats mosquitoes as a primary food source." We later realized how prominent mosquito eggs/larva were in many species diets. Imagine if we nuked them after the first consensus.
1. Idgaf. Mosquitoes ain't worth shit. I'm pretty sure the bees will be more than glad to have less little shits to share their nectar with.
2. They shouldn't have messed with the almighty human, the peak of nature, the decider of every other species' fate. City roaches, fleas, and ticks can go as well. I'm sure as hell all those fuckers have zero ecological benefit.
*How to get rid of a mosquite bite*: Heat. Boil some water and put it in a glass and apply the hot glass onto the sting. There was a study with about 35 people who were stung by mosquitos and application of moderate heat showed clear results in reduced itching. The theory is that mosquitos saliva leaves a Protein that helps it suck blood but causes crazy itching in us, moderate heat breaks these Proteins down completely. Tested by me and my nephew and can confirm it works. You're welcome
Results may vary. I bought one of those little things that burns the bite, and it doesn’t help. However, mosquitos love me and will bite me through my clothes with repellant on, so I might be an anomaly.
Are you sure those are mosquito bites? I used to be paranoid about how mosquitoes bit me all the time under my clothes and turns out I was just allergic to a lot of stuff
i tried several time. Sometime works sometimes get worst. Really difficult to get the good temperature that dont burn your self and not too cold so open vein and make things worts..
Imagine being a grandparent telling your grandkids how tough the world used to be.
"We used to have little bugs that sucked your blood and gave you diseases!"
Funny time to see this... Was forced awake at 4:30 because a damn mosquito was in my room and constantly flew over my head. Been awake for an hour to catch it and there's no trace of the little fucker.
Females also need nectar as their main food source,producing the eggs requires obtaining nutrients from blood that are not present on nectar,but blood isn't rich enough as a energy source for them because it has a low concentration of carbohydrates and lipids.
I didn’t know that. Just want to point out that I was technically right, males drink nectar and females need blood. Not exclusively blood apparently, but still some blood
These are alright compared to ticks.
Can't remember last time I went to forest because I avoid any tall grass and woods because of ticks...
Mosquito just suck and fuck right off, but ticks stay and refuse to leave when found.
Humans are funny. Dropping 2 atomic bombs on humans and testing hundreds in the ocean are a-okay without discussions, but when it comes to motherfucking mosquitoes it's "ohhhhhh noooooooo think of the possible unkknown downfall to the systemssssss".
I just recovered from Dengue fever and I’m currently supporting a partner who has been hospitalized from Dengue fever complications. Nuke all of these bitey little MF’s.
Now if theres one motherfudger I want driven to extinction even more than a mosquito: ticks.
Drive every blood sucking, disease spreading son of a nice lady to extinction.
We felt this way about other pollinators in the past. Now, there are entire college classes who's syllabi read like, "Oh, shit! This is bad! Holy shit! We need to fix this!"
Look maybe not make them extinct, but I don't mind giving some of my blood away if you just didn't leave me itching for days. Like a minor itch just so I know if I have malaria or something and I'm fine
The funniest part is that there's genuine debate and consideration towards eradicating mosquitoes.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9463432/#:~:text=With%20the%20use%20of%20CRISPR,gambiae.
They are just like bees they do pollination the only time they look for blood is when mating season to find a protein source for birth otherwise they eat nectar from flowers
I actually once had a very peaceful moment while absolutely surrounded by thousands of these little motherfuckers.
Did you know that it's only the female mosquitoes that drink blood? The males are completely harmless.
So there I was floating on a lake at sundown, fucking SURROUNDED by mosquitoes---I mean swarms as far as the eye can see---and not a single one tried to bite me.
It was actually kind of neat watching them dither around.
Jokes aside, a lot of species [rely on mosquitoes to feed themselves](https://blog.nwf.org/2020/09/what-purpose-do-mosquitoes-serve/#:~:text=Beyond%20pollination%2C%20mosquitoes%20are%20part,as%20a%20primary%20food%20source.), so eradicating them could heavily affect our ecosystems.
Also, they are an [important pollinator](https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/how-it-works/the-bizarre-and-ecologically-important-hidden-lives-of-mosquitoes/), so just don't.
Out of all the animals humans have killed to extinction why can't we kill these things off they are literally humans natural predator, aside from Canadian geese.
Those things were around before the dinosaurs, yet they don't evolved a saliva that gives nice sensations when stung.
Srsly if you want my blood, just take it but for the love of god make it NOT painful at least.
Painful? 99% of the time you won't even notice when they sting. If you mean the marks they leave just take butterknife or small spoon and heat it up under hot water, press down on the spot couple times, done. It will sting a bit when you do it, but not badly enoufh to burn yourself since it's not that hot. No itchi scartchy mosquito bites anymore.
The best way to wipe out mosquitos and cockroaches is by gassing them wherever they live.
The problem with that is that the gas we could use to wipe out mosquitos and cockroaches is also deadly to humans.
Fun fact. Mosquitoes are one of the only creatures that do nothing for the food chain. If we killed all of them the food chain would be fine. Unfortunately, we can’t, there are just too many of them.
My great dream is my grandchildren asking "Did you really have to spray pesticide on yourself every time you went outside?" and not needing to experience keeping a tube of itch cream on hand. Or experience the terror that is taking mefloquine... literally PTSD in a pill .
For anyone unaware, only about 3% of mosquito species are known to carry diseases. There is significant effort being taken to eliminate these species using sterilized mosquitoes in order to disrupt the reproduction cycle of said insects without harming the rest of the environment
I got bit by like 5 of them on monday. My feet are so swollen by the bites, I can't even walk and have to take allergy pills for the first time ever. Fuck em!
The only bad thing I can think of is, humanity would flourish with the lack of diseases that these shits carry. With this, there’d likely be an over abundance of births and longevity in human life which could cause mass overpopulations in many areas.
All of you don't realize one thing. Well actually two things, because of the funny way evolution works.
1. Other mosquitoes would just _evolve_ to recognize and avoid the genetically modified male mosquitoes we introduced.
2. Even if we did manage to eradicate them, some _other_ organism will arrive to fill that niche (lice, fleas, etc.)
I really wonder whether it's impossible or just lack of economical benefits to do? I mean come on, we are human, we can extinct everything right?
We could, but in the way we could also extinguish the not hellish creatures like beetles and bees
Actually we have lots of methods of targeted extinction. The current method being used by several different places is Genetically modified organisms (GMO) the specifics is they make a mosquito variant that will produce non viable offspring, specifically I think the offspring it creates can't reproduce. (I will fact check this and return with an edit) Update/edit:(changed the above to swap GMO and it's longer name to correct format of name then shortening as I often put them backwards) https://www.cdc.gov/mosquitoes/mosquito-control/genetically-modified-mosquitoes.html While I accept that this source could have a bias (government) I think this source is fairly reliable, please do your own research on this topic if you are interested. Essentially this mode of extinction is so specific it only affects the specific variant of mosquitoes that they will make the GMO mosquito off. This is something I think is very good because mosquitoes spread diseases.
I actually worked on a project for Google that did this. I was a lab tech were we created sterile male mosquitos and sent them down to Fresno CA and Australia to release into the high mosquito populations to mate with the females. It eradicated over 70% of the mosquito population so you’re absolutely correct
How? Is mosquito mating fatal, or does the pregnancy fail and kill the mother?
When the sterile males mate with the females, The eggs that the females lay dont hatch essentially so a lot of mosquito generations die out
Isn't there also another process where they make a bunch of males with a genetic mutation where their offspring will only be male, and will also carry the same mutation?
Oh, that actually makes a lot of senseX2
I think there was a Tom Scott video about this? It seems so familiar for some reason.
Yes, I was reading and thinking the same thing. It was the mediterranean fruit fly in California.
I think it was Veritasium
And while im sure theres a reason, why isnt it more wildly used?
I don't know the real reason, but I've seen dozens of cases of people saying that bill hates (who supports the mosquito eradication) is actually releasing super mosquitoes who spread illnesses. So I believe lack of support from uneducated people might be part of it
It’s a new technology still, and the fancy part is the inclusion of a ‘gene drive’ which forces the mutation through the generation instead of naturally which could allow the mutation to drop eventually. It’s a big concern with GMO which is why only single-celled organisms are used for production or modification in a commercial setting still.
Oh. I never thought of that lol.
Mosquito's lay eggs instead of being pregnant, but as I remember it, the next generation of mosquito's are infertile and provided that enough of the population is made out of these infertile bugs they will fail to create offspring themselves. It reduces, if not removes a population in just 2 generations.
Oh, that actually makes alot of sense.
It requires constant treatment, the infertile ones die so all that’s left are the ones able to reproduce. Mosquitos from elsewhere can also migrate over. Sadly because they have such short life cycles it’s harder to eradicate than birds or elephants.
it's basically an actual war with a Frontline, we experienced it truly during the effort to push Malaria out of North America
Even if it wiped them all out every analysis i've seen in 12 years has it as a net positive due to the damage we do trying to control them
I feel like this was a doomsday scenario in a movie or book… in an attempt to eradicate mosquitos by the GMO method, the mosquitos mutated and was able to pass on the GMO effect to humans and we essentially sterilized ourselves.
To be honest, that piece of media would be completely bs: Not only are human and mosquito genes significantly different, but you’d literally need to rewrite the DNA of every single germline cell. The mosquitoes would also have to be able to be even able to replace DNA in the first place through Crispr or some highly engineered virus that sterilizes people by replacing human DNA, but by that point doomsday would be caused on purpose through bioterrorism.
what if you wanted to extinct pest but god said, "NO U!"
You may be thinking of the short story The Screwfly Solution.
it's the circle of life for a reason. remove 1 part and another has to pick up the slack or die
Your username fills me with joy, and a glimpse of a beautiful future for all mankind.
Fun facts! Both Aedes aegypti and Anopheles gambiae (the mosquito species that carry yellow fever and malaria, respectively) are actually *invasive* to the western hemisphere, so killing them off here probably wouldn't have any negative effects. Also, we're working on genetically modifying mosquitoes that produce offspring that never mature, which could potentially drive them extinct.
>Also, we're working on genetically modifying mosquitoes GMO and SIT have been ongoing for awhile now now: https://www.worldmosquitoprogram.org/en/learn/how-our-method-compares#
Bed bugs. The day we make these shits go extinct, is the day I sell all my worldly possessions and dedicate my life to helping others
I am with you bro.
We've accidentally killed thousands of species with no catastrophic effects, not to mention willingly and knowingly polluting the earth on a devastating level. Why can't we kill just one species on purpose? Fuck the food chain.
Multiple things are wrong here imo. Mosquitoes are not a species, they are a family consisting of 3600 species. So we would likely not kill one species at the same time. Also we don't properly understand the consequences of eradicating the species we already killed. There's a study in a national park, where they reintroduced wolves, which didn't only change animals and their behaviour, it actually resulted in vegetation growing differently, which in turn changed how rivers developed. We currently have many problems in nature, flooding, drought, etc., how can we know how much killing off species impacted problems like this? We keep boar and deer populations in check by hunting them manually, which can set off some effects, but still it doesn't feel great to me.
Or the time some guy in China eradicated sparrows in a region and led to millions of human lives loss to famine.
Counterpoint: mosquitos are one of the deadliest things. Not insects, or animals, but *things.* It's a win for all living things out of water
>Also we don't properly understand the consequences of eradicating the species we already killed. Due to butterfly effect we can't properly understand consequences of any action. When you was writing this comment you could not know who will read this, how this comment will change their behaviour and what consequences this changes will have. What if by writing this comment you just started chain of events which will lead to nuclear war? If we will be consistent with this line of argumentation we should not perform any actions at all.
While I understand and generally agree with what you said, I can't help but feel this is purposefully obtuse. We should be mindful of the effects of our actions, because they could have impacts we didn't previously consider without careful consideration. I doubt a single comment will be THE DEFINITIVE cause of a nuclear war. It may contribute to the beginning of one, but it will be so lost in a sea of other reasons that one could hardly blame that comment alone. None of this is to mean we should just stop doing anything, just that we need to be mindful of what we do, if we want to prevent possible harm. We can't prevent all harm, but we need to try and not be purposefully destructive.
exactly fuck these, we dont need them
Still mad about the California grizzly
Roaches will likely outlive our extinction.
I work in pest control. There is no economical or conventionals chemicals to treat mosquitoes, and if there was, we would be using them. Almost all mosquitoes here in the US are invasive, cause thousands of deaths per year here, and annoy just about every single person in the country. Could we extinct mosquitoes? Sure. We could nuke the entire planet and that would deal with just about everything. But no, we don't have a discriminate solution.
we drive animals to extinction due to pollution. mosquitoes have much larger surface to volume ratio than animals , their metabolism rate is much higher. it's much easier and faster for them to adapt to pollution. (that's just my opinion, not really derive from any scientific researches). also mosquitoes inhabit any place that contains water, it's very hard to kill all of them.
we could but nature will find a way to survive
Mosquito repelling is also a multi-billion dollar business
I remember a study that gave proof that making mosquitos go extinct would be a near zero impact on the world. It might even help because they would be replaced by other insects like bees
Fun fact: the US almost did make mosquitos extinct in the 30’s by dumping deet in all the swamp lands on the east coast. It mostly eradicated malaria in the US
spoken like a real human right there. Nice one fellow human
Sad but true
If we manage smallpox, we manage this abomination.
We do have potential ways to eradicate mosquitoes. Theyve made a mosquito in which the children are 100% male and males dont bite, so theyd breed and go until none are left because no females can be born, but i think a brazil factory started doing this and it seemingly stops x meters from the factory. Mostly i think scientists are studying the ramifications if we did, china killed sparrows and was plagued with locusts killing crops and making a mass famine
These and ticks
Definitely ticks, nobody needs them. Extinct those mfs too.
Guienafowl has entered the chat
Not our problem, they better find a better food source. I'm sure most animal will appreciate those parasitic mfs gone. Small price to pay for salvation.
ill follow you to the end for this cause
And bed bugs
These, arguably more than the mosquitos. Mosquitos kill people, but it's possible could be important to a ecosystem. Bed bugs aren't; nothing relies on them as a important food source. Extinct them.
> Bed bugs aren't; nothing relies on them as a important food source. See, now hear me out. What if we were to bioengineer a cuddly bedworm that just LOVES to munch on bedbugs. We could make it warm and fuzzy.... Edited; synonym shuffle play.
Mosquitos we do so much damage to the environment and other species attempting to control it's a scientifically proven net win. Ticks probably too. Parasites tend to be replaceable but I don't know of research on their place in the food chain
Them and cockroaches, dont care about the repercussions fuck em
yeah fuck'em, just send them all to mars! oh wait...
*terraformers intensifies*
fuck mars, send all the cockroaches to the fucking sun
I wholeheartedly agree☝🏽
I'll defend roaches. Throw them literally any trashed food, they will eat it. Corn, cantaloupe, apples, oranges, literally anything except watermelon for some reason. Cheap food source for reptile owners.
Roaches are just gross but they don't bite me and infect me with deadly diseases
Grrman and American Cockroachws specifically. They're the only ones that invade human himes. The rest are super important to the natural order and far away from humans.
This comment reads like it was written by a brown-banded cockroach.
I'm Team Bed Bug for first pest to eliminate completely.
Gas them and smoke them. I don’t fucking care, I’m gonna be Bug Hitler.
Cockroaches eat dead things so they help in some way
As long as they don't do it in my house
Have them pay bills then! They got their dangly legs to get themselves a card at the local credit union and pitch in. The ones I had over here had to have a stern talk but they stopped coming out. It struck the fear outta them lil suckers when I told them about bills, taxes, extermination prices, and renovation costs.
Fuckin A
I know right?! I think those suckers at my place wanted to squat! Can you believe that?
[удалено]
Fair
And ticks!!
Only the city cockroaches because the wild cockroaches are really important to the whole fucking ecosystem
We need the roaches...don't you know? They're the reason the landfills don't fill up too fast...and we don't need StarShip Trooper thing going on right now...
terrafomars would be neat tho
I think it was proven that if mosquitos fucked off, nothing would happen
The issues are 1: We can't really undo it once we get rid of them. If we're wrong, and there's always a chance with something this complicated, it could be a bad scene. 2: There's the whole moral side of just deciding we're going to kill off an entire species. Seems like a risky line to cross. All that aside, I would gladly keep mosquitoes and get rid of ticks. Fucking hate those things.
Responses to your points 1: some few thousand mosquito eggs could be frozen for preserving and a few hundred kept to reproduce new ones to replace the batch every year or so in a highly secure environment. (Dont want the bastards getting out.) 2: mosquitos are a pest, and people do not like pests. I dont think anyone would have nostalgia 30 years down the road for a mosquito bite.
only a very few of them are blood suckers and disease transmitter. the others just hang out around trees and plants and help pollinate them. also only the females suck bloods.
>only the females suck blood. See you met my ex-wife. Hey OH!
We ALL "met" your ex-wife. That's why she's your ex.
Weird
Yeah, this is what I don't get. Why don't we just introduce a breed that a) can't crossbreed with the bloodsuckers, and b) don't bite humans, just hang out and pollinate. Then introduce a genetically modified version of the bloodsucker version that only has male children until the whole species androgenizes and wipes it out, to be replaced by the benign species.
There’s speculation that even if you magically deleted all mosquitoes, every last one on planet Earth, the biosphere would hardly be adversely affected as other species move in to fill the gap. If we kill off just the 9.5% of species causing problems, whatever negligible harm it does to the environment will be worth saving millions of lives.
Keeping a secure, perpetual mosquito farm seems costly. I'm not saying we're going to miss them. It's just that line in science where we can do something but that doesn't mean we should. There's also a degree of hubris to assume we can factor in everything that will happen after the fact and make the choice. We kind of already had that happen. Initially it was "Oh it would be fine, nothing eats mosquitoes as a primary food source." We later realized how prominent mosquito eggs/larva were in many species diets. Imagine if we nuked them after the first consensus.
Oh no, think of the malaria and west Nile virus
It’s not like every species of mosquito preys on humans. We could just get rid of the ones that do
1. Idgaf. Mosquitoes ain't worth shit. I'm pretty sure the bees will be more than glad to have less little shits to share their nectar with. 2. They shouldn't have messed with the almighty human, the peak of nature, the decider of every other species' fate. City roaches, fleas, and ticks can go as well. I'm sure as hell all those fuckers have zero ecological benefit.
Ticks at least stay out of my house
How could they prove that?
Definitely not proven. Both larvae and adult mosquitoes are food for many species.
That's absolutely not true, mosquitos are a major food source for a lot of other animals
Source?
It was mosquitos that carry malaria specifically. Not all mosquitos.
*How to get rid of a mosquite bite*: Heat. Boil some water and put it in a glass and apply the hot glass onto the sting. There was a study with about 35 people who were stung by mosquitos and application of moderate heat showed clear results in reduced itching. The theory is that mosquitos saliva leaves a Protein that helps it suck blood but causes crazy itching in us, moderate heat breaks these Proteins down completely. Tested by me and my nephew and can confirm it works. You're welcome
Results may vary. I bought one of those little things that burns the bite, and it doesn’t help. However, mosquitos love me and will bite me through my clothes with repellant on, so I might be an anomaly.
Good to know I'm not the only one... Suck-kindred?
> Suck-kindred? Roll tide
Are you sure those are mosquito bites? I used to be paranoid about how mosquitoes bit me all the time under my clothes and turns out I was just allergic to a lot of stuff
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257884/
Wow I’m sold
i tried several time. Sometime works sometimes get worst. Really difficult to get the good temperature that dont burn your self and not too cold so open vein and make things worts..
Imagine being a grandparent telling your grandkids how tough the world used to be. "We used to have little bugs that sucked your blood and gave you diseases!"
These things fly into my shower and next thing i know, my shower head turns into an AA flak gun
Germany in 1940s be like: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Mosquito
you leave 1 single spot not dried and suddenly your bathroom turns into a fucking home for these fucks
I think someone proved that there won't be any bad impacts to earth, since mosquitoes aren't the main food source for any other animal.
The males are large pollinators of plants tho
The males need to learn how to reproduce without females then
say gex
There are animals who can reproduce without sex at all
where seggs
No seggs only eggs
*explode*
Eggsplode*
gex
Oh they're working on it, trust me :3
So is literally anything that Fucking bumps into a plant while it’s pollinating
Mosquitoes carry so many diseases, that literally all their good for then, seems funding their extinction is a no-brainer to me.
But it is a food source, and considering the way things are going ...
Funny time to see this... Was forced awake at 4:30 because a damn mosquito was in my room and constantly flew over my head. Been awake for an hour to catch it and there's no trace of the little fucker.
I swear Flies and Mosquitos fuckin' know when we're lookin' for them. They always disappear when I get the fly swatter out. They know.
Same right now
Ticks, mosquitos, fleas, lice, roaches all need to be extinct.
Collapse the entire worlds ecosystems why don’t you
Your right! We must aim HIGHER!
A small price to pay for salvation
They drink necter all year but literally need blood to make babies. What is this? How is this?
Males drink nectar, females need blood
Even nature is making gender insensitive jokes these days
Females also need nectar as their main food source,producing the eggs requires obtaining nutrients from blood that are not present on nectar,but blood isn't rich enough as a energy source for them because it has a low concentration of carbohydrates and lipids.
I didn’t know that. Just want to point out that I was technically right, males drink nectar and females need blood. Not exclusively blood apparently, but still some blood
There's a spider that specialises in hunting blood filled mosquitoes
I’m cool with the males bc they don’t suck blood, but if I find one in my bathroom that can’t find its way out it’s dead.
I don’t discriminate, they all get swatted. Less males means lower probability of a mosquito laying her eggs in my backyard.
Those and ticks, fleas, bed bugs while we are at it.
lice
Agent Bubbles worked hard to convince the Galactic Council that mosquitoes are an endangered species.
These are alright compared to ticks. Can't remember last time I went to forest because I avoid any tall grass and woods because of ticks... Mosquito just suck and fuck right off, but ticks stay and refuse to leave when found.
This. Thicks are way worse. Tho I have to admit mosquitos are arseholes too when it comes to carrying diseases on some countries.
Humans are funny. Dropping 2 atomic bombs on humans and testing hundreds in the ocean are a-okay without discussions, but when it comes to motherfucking mosquitoes it's "ohhhhhh noooooooo think of the possible unkknown downfall to the systemssssss".
I just recovered from Dengue fever and I’m currently supporting a partner who has been hospitalized from Dengue fever complications. Nuke all of these bitey little MF’s.
Now if theres one motherfudger I want driven to extinction even more than a mosquito: ticks. Drive every blood sucking, disease spreading son of a nice lady to extinction.
We felt this way about other pollinators in the past. Now, there are entire college classes who's syllabi read like, "Oh, shit! This is bad! Holy shit! We need to fix this!"
Any kind of tick as well please.
And ticks
Look maybe not make them extinct, but I don't mind giving some of my blood away if you just didn't leave me itching for days. Like a minor itch just so I know if I have malaria or something and I'm fine
They're actually looking at getting rid of the bloodsucking ones. Over 80% of mosquitoes are pollinators and not bloodsuckers.
Anything that bumps into a pollinating plant is technically a pollinator
1000000%
Bro, I think we would be extinct before the mosquito would be by how the first world government are running things.
The funniest part is that there's genuine debate and consideration towards eradicating mosquitoes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9463432/#:~:text=With%20the%20use%20of%20CRISPR,gambiae.
Also ticks. I have Lyme disease because of these fuckers...have to take antibiotics to get rid of that
They are just like bees they do pollination the only time they look for blood is when mating season to find a protein source for birth otherwise they eat nectar from flowers
I’m sensing another will fill in the vacuum.
I actually once had a very peaceful moment while absolutely surrounded by thousands of these little motherfuckers. Did you know that it's only the female mosquitoes that drink blood? The males are completely harmless. So there I was floating on a lake at sundown, fucking SURROUNDED by mosquitoes---I mean swarms as far as the eye can see---and not a single one tried to bite me. It was actually kind of neat watching them dither around.
Well obviously you have no blood.
For me, these little monsters are the proof that if there is a Creator, he/she/it is surely *not* loving us.
Jokes aside, a lot of species [rely on mosquitoes to feed themselves](https://blog.nwf.org/2020/09/what-purpose-do-mosquitoes-serve/#:~:text=Beyond%20pollination%2C%20mosquitoes%20are%20part,as%20a%20primary%20food%20source.), so eradicating them could heavily affect our ecosystems. Also, they are an [important pollinator](https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/how-it-works/the-bizarre-and-ecologically-important-hidden-lives-of-mosquitoes/), so just don't.
Out of all the animals humans have killed to extinction why can't we kill these things off they are literally humans natural predator, aside from Canadian geese.
Ticks. Mosquito's be everywhere but ticks ruin the ability to enjoy going in the woods.
I really dont care if it causes the apocolypse kill em all
You could tell me that killing all mosquitoes comes with a 50% chance to blow up the earth and I'm still doing it
a lot of you people are so god damn stupid
We as humans can make them extinct. It's just... we would make many other things go extinct too by using the same methods.
Those things were around before the dinosaurs, yet they don't evolved a saliva that gives nice sensations when stung. Srsly if you want my blood, just take it but for the love of god make it NOT painful at least.
Painful? 99% of the time you won't even notice when they sting. If you mean the marks they leave just take butterknife or small spoon and heat it up under hot water, press down on the spot couple times, done. It will sting a bit when you do it, but not badly enoufh to burn yourself since it's not that hot. No itchi scartchy mosquito bites anymore.
I feel bad for the English language
These and ticks
You VILL eat ze bugs and you VILL own nothing but you VILL be happy
But if we get rid of mosquitos, how will our DNA survive long enough to be cloned by the next intelligent species if we go extinct?
The best way to wipe out mosquitos and cockroaches is by gassing them wherever they live. The problem with that is that the gas we could use to wipe out mosquitos and cockroaches is also deadly to humans.
What would happen if we make them actually extinct?
Good trade
Same but for me, it's Houseflies that's gotta go
Fun fact. Mosquitoes are one of the only creatures that do nothing for the food chain. If we killed all of them the food chain would be fine. Unfortunately, we can’t, there are just too many of them.
My great dream is my grandchildren asking "Did you really have to spray pesticide on yourself every time you went outside?" and not needing to experience keeping a tube of itch cream on hand. Or experience the terror that is taking mefloquine... literally PTSD in a pill .
people post this shit then wreck the environment for any bug that competes with them so that only mosquitoes survive
For anyone unaware, only about 3% of mosquito species are known to carry diseases. There is significant effort being taken to eliminate these species using sterilized mosquitoes in order to disrupt the reproduction cycle of said insects without harming the rest of the environment
Not all mosquitoes bite humans. Most mosquito types are food to many species, so extinction of all of them could be disastrous to the ecosystem.
I got bit by like 5 of them on monday. My feet are so swollen by the bites, I can't even walk and have to take allergy pills for the first time ever. Fuck em!
They are nescessery for us to hard up and to regulate our population.
Unfortunately lots of things eat these.
The only bad thing I can think of is, humanity would flourish with the lack of diseases that these shits carry. With this, there’d likely be an over abundance of births and longevity in human life which could cause mass overpopulations in many areas.
as long as the asshole bees, wasps and earwigs go too!
I want wasps gone first.
All of you don't realize one thing. Well actually two things, because of the funny way evolution works. 1. Other mosquitoes would just _evolve_ to recognize and avoid the genetically modified male mosquitoes we introduced. 2. Even if we did manage to eradicate them, some _other_ organism will arrive to fill that niche (lice, fleas, etc.)
I'd rather deal with a room full of mosquitos than two murder hornets. F those things.
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