Top 5 Mosquito Facts
facts, mosquitos, disease, zika virus, microcephaly, ohio state university, urine, malaria, dengue, mosquito factories, genetic modifications, mosquito extinction, quammen, ecology, top 5, chris masson,
Written by Chris Masson
Are mosquitoes the most annoying creatures on the planet? Or are they actually… uh, the most annoying creatures on the planet and... something else? Welcome to WatchMojo’s Top 5 Facts. In today’s instalment, we’re counting down the 5 most fascinating facts we could find about the sometimes pesky, sometimes pestilent little vampires known as mosquitoes.
Researchers have developed a variety of novel ways to lure, traps and kill these blood suckers. For one, researchers at James Cook University have zeroed in on the exact frequency of sound that attracts male mosquitoes: 484 Hertz. They say this is the same frequency of the sound of female mosquitoes wingbeats, and have created a trap that emits the tone. Scientists at Ohio State University found a way to shut down mosquitoes’ kidney-like organs. Down in Florida they’ve discovered that traps that use black lights are more effective than fluorescent light traps. In Guatemala, Canadian researchers had great success with this low tech solution made from recycled materials. Another team from the USDA has seen encouraging results in luring mosquitoes to pesticides by mixing them with sugars.
Yup, mosquitoes add a few hundred nanolitres of insult to the quasi-injury of their bites. When a female mosquito sinks her proboscis into your bloodstream, she gorges herself herself on the equivalent of her own body mass. In order to make room for all that delicious blood, she’s got to get rid of all the excess water and salt in her body, so, yeah, she pees it out. Also, before and during feeding, she is injecting her saliva into you as an anticoagulant, so your blood doesn’t clog up her proboscis. Saliva, urine, blood, probosces… I suddenly feel like we’ve got a very intimate relationship with mosquitoes. Yuck.
Mosquitoes spread life-threatening infectious diseases like dengue fever, malaria, yellow fever, and zika.But by injecting a strain of bacteria into mosquito embryos that renders them immune to malaria and dengue,scientists have created mosquitoes incapable of transmitting some of these diseases to humans. Best of all, this immunity seems to be passed on genetically, so this trait is gradually spreading through the gene pool. To speed up that process, so-called mosquito factories have been built in various countries around the world, including China and Brazil, that are capable of releasing millions of mosquitoes every week. New research has shown that this same bacteria, Wolbachia, could also work in the same way against Zika virus. Eventually, these diseases could be a thing of the past.
So why have malaria-free mosquitoes when you could just have… no mosquitoes? In 2014, scientists from the Imperial College London created a genetic method that causes Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, the main transmitters of malaria, to produce almost entirely male offspring, resulting in a Krogan genophage-type situation. Recent advancements have made this strategy even more effective, rendering the offspring of the modified mosquitoes completely sterile, or giving them really short lifespans. Scientists say that even with mosquito factories creating GM mosquitoes it would be a long, difficult process but in theory, a world without the #1 entry on WatchMojo’s list of the Top 10 Most Annoying Insects is tenable. So, what are we waiting for? Well...
Yes, being responsible for the death of one million people every year makes them the most deadly animal on the planet, but they are part of their ecosystems nevertheless.Ecologists have learned the hard way that removing one element from an ecosystem can have disastrous knock-on effects. Removing problematic predators like wolves, for instance, can allow prey species like deers to overpopulate, leading to a loss of plant diversity, which leads to other problems and so on. However, unlike that example, it’s apparently tough for ecologists to point any useful niche that makes skeeters indispensable. Yes, they pollinate plants, but other bugs could do that in their place. Yes, larger animals eat them, but, except at high northern latitudes, they don’t make up a significant portion of any one species’ diet… But those experts could be wrong, and the results could be disastrous. Perhaps, as science writer David Quammen suggests, the one thing that really makes mosquitoes indispensable is the fact they are so dangerous to humans; according to Quammen, the largest impediment to colonizing or clearing equatorial rain forests has always been a hyper abundance of mosquitoes.
So, what do you think? Should we eliminate all mosquitoes and deal with the aftermath then? For more useful niche top 10s and screwed-by-the-Salarians top 5s published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.
Top 5 Mosquito Facts
Are mosquitoes the most annoying creatures on the planet? Or are they actually… uh, the most annoying creatures on the planet and... something else? Welcome to WatchMojo’s Top 5 Facts. In today’s instalment, we’re counting down the 5 most fascinating facts we could find about the sometimes pesky, sometimes pestilent little vampires known as mosquitoes.
#5: The War on Mosquitoes is Getting Creative
Researchers have developed a variety of novel ways to lure, traps and kill these blood suckers. For one, researchers at James Cook University have zeroed in on the exact frequency of sound that attracts male mosquitoes: 484 Hertz. They say this is the same frequency of the sound of female mosquitoes wingbeats, and have created a trap that emits the tone. Scientists at Ohio State University found a way to shut down mosquitoes’ kidney-like organs. Down in Florida they’ve discovered that traps that use black lights are more effective than fluorescent light traps. In Guatemala, Canadian researchers had great success with this low tech solution made from recycled materials. Another team from the USDA has seen encouraging results in luring mosquitoes to pesticides by mixing them with sugars.
#4: Mosquitoes Pee on You While They Bite You
Yup, mosquitoes add a few hundred nanolitres of insult to the quasi-injury of their bites. When a female mosquito sinks her proboscis into your bloodstream, she gorges herself herself on the equivalent of her own body mass. In order to make room for all that delicious blood, she’s got to get rid of all the excess water and salt in her body, so, yeah, she pees it out. Also, before and during feeding, she is injecting her saliva into you as an anticoagulant, so your blood doesn’t clog up her proboscis. Saliva, urine, blood, probosces… I suddenly feel like we’ve got a very intimate relationship with mosquitoes. Yuck.
#3: “Mosquito Factories” Could Mean the End of Malaria and Dengue
Mosquitoes spread life-threatening infectious diseases like dengue fever, malaria, yellow fever, and zika.But by injecting a strain of bacteria into mosquito embryos that renders them immune to malaria and dengue,scientists have created mosquitoes incapable of transmitting some of these diseases to humans. Best of all, this immunity seems to be passed on genetically, so this trait is gradually spreading through the gene pool. To speed up that process, so-called mosquito factories have been built in various countries around the world, including China and Brazil, that are capable of releasing millions of mosquitoes every week. New research has shown that this same bacteria, Wolbachia, could also work in the same way against Zika virus. Eventually, these diseases could be a thing of the past.
#2: Genetic Modification Could Eliminate Mosquitoes Completely
So why have malaria-free mosquitoes when you could just have… no mosquitoes? In 2014, scientists from the Imperial College London created a genetic method that causes Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, the main transmitters of malaria, to produce almost entirely male offspring, resulting in a Krogan genophage-type situation. Recent advancements have made this strategy even more effective, rendering the offspring of the modified mosquitoes completely sterile, or giving them really short lifespans. Scientists say that even with mosquito factories creating GM mosquitoes it would be a long, difficult process but in theory, a world without the #1 entry on WatchMojo’s list of the Top 10 Most Annoying Insects is tenable. So, what are we waiting for? Well...
#1: Nobody Knows What the Side Effects of Mosquito Extinction Would Be
Yes, being responsible for the death of one million people every year makes them the most deadly animal on the planet, but they are part of their ecosystems nevertheless.Ecologists have learned the hard way that removing one element from an ecosystem can have disastrous knock-on effects. Removing problematic predators like wolves, for instance, can allow prey species like deers to overpopulate, leading to a loss of plant diversity, which leads to other problems and so on. However, unlike that example, it’s apparently tough for ecologists to point any useful niche that makes skeeters indispensable. Yes, they pollinate plants, but other bugs could do that in their place. Yes, larger animals eat them, but, except at high northern latitudes, they don’t make up a significant portion of any one species’ diet… But those experts could be wrong, and the results could be disastrous. Perhaps, as science writer David Quammen suggests, the one thing that really makes mosquitoes indispensable is the fact they are so dangerous to humans; according to Quammen, the largest impediment to colonizing or clearing equatorial rain forests has always been a hyper abundance of mosquitoes.
So, what do you think? Should we eliminate all mosquitoes and deal with the aftermath then? For more useful niche top 10s and screwed-by-the-Salarians top 5s published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.
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