I was trying to think of unusual animals and how they contribute to the food chain, and I really couldn’t think of anything useful from mosquitoes and whales.
Thoughts?
Mosquitoes (adult and larvae) are an important source of food for dragonflies. Bats eat a lot of them too, but they’re not a major component of a bat’s diet. Catfish, goldfish, bass, guppies, and I’m sure a number of other fish also feed on their larvae.
Whales? Haven’t thought about them. When it comes to it, of what use are we in the grand scheme of things?
I recall a documentary in which a deep-sea submersible observed a great many hagfish feasting on a whale carcass that had sunk to the dark depths. This was an important food source for them (the hagfish and other benthic critters).
They feed other animals when they die (those hagfish eat for months), they eat tons of fish/plankton/krill, their calves are sometimes attacked and eaten by other creatures (Orcas are all I am aware of but maybe some sharks too?), they host a lot of parasites, some whales are eaten by polar bears.
I’m not sure how important those things are. If you took whales out, maybe nothing would go extinct or overpopulate. The problem with trying to figure out how they contribute is that they’re at the top of the food chain. They let other creatures do the contributing. How do lions contribute to the food chain?
What if you change the word ‘whale’ and replaced it with ‘human beans’?
Mosquitoes have great benefit: Without them, there wouldn’t be any more mosquito eggs or larvae. Mosquitoes serve the grand purpose of making more mosquitoes.
Why, did you expect them to be in the service of some other organism? Why would one expect that?
Plus don’t forget whale-bone corsets!
Whales feed the Japanese. Dead Japanese feed bacteria. Bacteria feed plants. Plants may one day become petroleum. Live Japanese, meanwhile, create robots. Already the robots are consuming fuel, and one day they will indirectly eat dead Japanese and grow even more powerful. Once advanced enough, they may team up with the remaining whales and hunt down live Japanese. And so the circle of life goes on and on and on…
Life doesn’t need a predesignated purpose (or an obvious one, for that matter)… if something successfully evolves to fill a certain niche, well, it has every right to occupy that niche until something better comes along. “Usefulness” is not a criterion for continued survival.
IOW, it’s not so much “What good are whales?” or “Why do whales exist?” but rather “Are there sufficient forces that would cause whales to disappear from the food web once they’re there?” If not (or not yet), they’re gonna remain there.
Did you know you’ve got four miles of tubing in your stomach?
And the hagfish in turn sustain us by giving us nightmares.
I don’t know how they might fit into the food chain, but…
Do you have any idea what the world population would be today without the lowly mosquito?
Maybe a more appropriate question is to ask what other organisms take advantage of the existence of mosquitoes?
I’d put bats and dragonflies on that list, not sure what else. Must be some fish and other aquatic life that feast on the larvae.
Mosquitos and whales, being non-union, tend to may minimal benefit if any. Organized creatures, such as termites and coral, have excellent benefit packages.
If whales died out, would the oceans be overrun by krill?
They’re just waiting for their chance. And when overpopulation becomes too severe, they’ll evolve to breathe air. Probably grow bigger, too. We must save the whales, else await our doom under the Krill overlords.
Plastic. How else is the Earth going to generate plastic?
you win the thread!
(And thank you for a good laugh after a miserable day)
Really? Polar bears? How big a whale are we talking here, exactly?
Whales give us the lovely metaphor: he’s lower than whale shit.
Here’s a video of a polar bear hunting beluga whales.
Here’s a video of polar bears feeding on a whale.