# Would Are Eco Sytem be Ok If We Extincted Mosquitos? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 24, 2001, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982 "2001-08-24T20:18:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wildest\_Bill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Wildest\_Bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildest_Bill)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/1 "2001-08-24T20:18:13Z")
I don’t know abou you but I hate those suckers. I say kill’em all if we have the technology to do so. Now I know frogs are probably going to starve and that is something I am willing to live without if it means getting rid of one of the most pesty bugs ever. But what about the rest of the eco system could it survive without mosquitos? ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/2 "2001-08-24T20:27:34Z")
I think several animals, such as bats, depend on mosquitoes for food. They are not, I believe, needed for pollinization, and we could probably find alternatives for bat-feeding. Unfortunately, they seem to be a bitch to get rid of, and DDT is banned. And Bill, I love ya, but that thread title is an abomination. 1. “Are” for “Our” 2. “Ecosystem” split into two words 3. “OK” miscapitalized 4. Use of “extinct” as a verb 5. “Mosquitoes” misspelled I’m not one to care about such things usually, but at least look like you’re making an effort. ---
**Author:** ![Wildest\_Bill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Wildest\_Bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildest_Bill)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/3 "2001-08-24T20:31:57Z")
Dad gum waterj2, You’re right, I screwed up this post massively can I blame Friday as being the reason? I wish we had an edit function sometime. But so we could get rid of the little suckers without to much damage to our ecosystem. Cool. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/4 "2001-08-24T20:34:07Z")
Don’t get your hopes up. They can’t even decide whether or not to make anthrax extinct… ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/5 "2001-08-24T20:49:05Z")
Hey, in my book, it’s OK as long as it’s one of those days that ends with a Y. 😃 I would have no opposition to maintaining a small mosquito museum or something where those that wanted to could go in and get bitten. As long as none of the mosquitoes ever leave. Maybe we could use that Biosphere II thing when they’re done with it. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/6 "2001-08-24T21:04:22Z")
Good luck making them go exinct too. There are dozens (if not hundreds) of species of mosquitoes that live everywhere from the tropics to the tundra. They likely out-live us. ---
**Author:** ![Alphagene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/7 "2001-08-24T21:08:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ethilrist \* > \*\*Don’t get your hopes up. They can’t even decide whether or not to make anthrax extinct… \*\* I’d imagine that would be extremely hard to do. It’s well nigh impossible to eliminate a pathogen if it has _one_ animal reservoir let alone several (_Bacillus antracis_ infects sheep, cattle, horses, goats, and pigs) I believe you are make reference the controversy with requiring active military personel to be inoculated with anthrax vaccine. Even if every human being on earth was protected by an anthrax vaccine, the bacteria would not become exinct. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/8 "2001-08-24T22:03:46Z")
Actually, I suspect Ethilrist is referring to the debate about whether to destroy the (allegedly) last remaining samples of the smallpox virus. ---
**Author:** ![dreamlab](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8dc957/32.png) [@dreamlab](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dreamlab)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/9 "2001-08-24T22:13:18Z")
The hell with the debate on the ecosystem, you’re gonna destroy our annual mosquito festival in Southern Oregon. [http://paisley.presys.com/mosq5.html](http://paisley.presys.com/mosq5.html) ---
**Author:** ![Gaspode](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/aeb1de/32.png) [@Gaspode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaspode)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/10 "2001-08-24T22:17:03Z")
Try it in SE Australia and you’ll have a couple of thousand angry farmers with shotguns chasing you. Mosquitoes are the main vector of rabbit calicivirus and a minor but important vector for myxamotosis. Without mosquitoes the rabbit populations would explode to the levels they were at last century, definitely not a good thing ecologically speaking. I’m not a mosquitoe expert but I suspect that without mosquito vectors numerous animal diseases would stop spreading leading to overpopulation and resource depletion. There are also several migratory birds that nest in arctic regions that depend upon the squillions of mosquitoes that hatch every year to feed their chicks. Wipe out the mosquitoes and the birds you may not wipe out the birds but their populations would almost certainly crash. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/11 "2001-08-24T23:31:17Z")
“Extincting” mosquitoes, as you so eloquently put it, would indeed have all kinds of unforseen consequences. Mosquito ecology is hardly a burgeoning area of research (well, at least it ain’t stem cells…), so we’d have to do a LOT of work to be able to predict exactly what would happen. Plus, I very seriously doubt we could do it. It’s one of those things that’s probably theoretically possible, but not practically. We’d have to dump insanely massive amounts of pesticides all over the place. Literally any pool of stagnant water could harbor larvae (targeting the larval stage is the easiest way to go about mosquito control). That empty tire in your yard, that pothole in front of your house, your kid’s toy bucket he left in the yard - all of them would have to be treated or removed. It’s just not feasable. When the role of mosquitos in tropical diseases was figured out long long ago, in the before time, massive control projects were initated in the most seriously affected areas, which have worked quite well for a long time. Now, however, people think of, say, malaria as a disease no one gets anymore, and funding for these projects is getting cut. Thus, we’re now seeing a resurgence of mosquito-borne diseases, including malaria. ---
**Author:** ![TN\_hippie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@TN\_hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TN_hippie)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2001, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/12 "2001-08-24T23:38:12Z")
[playful jab] I don’t know, but some would argue that the ecosystem of this board would be better if we extincted butchers of the English language.[/playful jab] 😉 ---
**Author:** ![warmgun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecccb3/32.png) [@warmgun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/warmgun)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/13 "2001-08-25T01:29:59Z")
Um…It seems to me you are over-looking the most obvious disruption to the Ecosystem. Bats #1 food source in Mexico. Bats are the main pollinators of guava plants. From those plants we get… Wildest Bill - bite your tongue! ---
**Author:** ![Kalashnikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/2bfe46/32.png) [@Kalashnikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalashnikov)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/14 "2001-08-25T01:47:17Z")
So if you want to get rid of (or at least minimize) the mosquito population in a certain area you could do it by increasing the bat population? How would you go about doing that? ---
**Author:** ![mmmiiikkkeee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/15 "2001-08-25T02:00:27Z")
In order to “extinct” mosquitoes, you’d have to dump so much poison into the environment that it would likely kill everything else too, or at least many other aquatic insect species and maybe amphibian larvae. Then go the snakes & birds, water could get contaminated, insect eating birds and bats would suffer, as well as what depends on them… “Oh the humanity!”:D. It would cost a pretty penny too, and you’d have to cover pretty well the whole globe - or the wind would just blow some more in from Gilligan’s Island. Miss just a few, and the population would sky-rocket and by next year you’d never know you’d spent X-billion dollars to eliminate a simple pest. I think we’ll have to grin and bear their existance for some time yet… ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/16 "2001-08-25T02:04:54Z")
I am thinking of a Simpsons episode… where Bart is a mom to some evil, bird-eating lizards? Skinner’s “punchline” in the end about the gorillas… someone please do it the justice because I can’t and it does tie in perfectly here. ---
**Author:** ![dqa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dqa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dqa)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/17 "2001-08-25T02:19:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by warmgun \* > **Bats #1 food source in Mexico.** I never realized they were that popular; I would’ve guessed rice and corn. **waterj2** , “mosquitos” is an acceptable spelling, per [Merriam-Webster](http://www.m-w.com/). ---
**Author:** ![Mirage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Mirage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirage)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/18 "2001-08-25T02:36:35Z")
I think that the point has been made pretty clear that mosquitoes are not only too numerous and well-adapted to wipe out, but their extinction would wreck havoc to all those ecological balances we’re trying so hard not to screw up. The technology does not currently exist but in my opinion the best course of action would be to introduce a harmless retrovirus into various mosquito populations which would alter their offspring’s behavior genetically, causing an aversion to bodies producing pheromones excreted only by humans. This way they’ll still do their thing, without annoying the hell out of us. Of course I’ve probably reading too much Orson Scott Card… ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/19 "2001-08-25T03:14:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Lisa: But then we’re stuck with gorillas! > Skinner: No, that’s the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death. ---
**Author:** ![Freyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freyr/32/5763_2.png) [@Freyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freyr)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2001, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982/20 "2001-08-25T03:22:49Z")
**WB** , I gotta hand it to you, that’s got to be the most amazing use of English I’ve seen yet. Back to the OP, I just thought of another viewpoint. It would be impossible to kill EVERY LAST MOSQUITO overnight. It’s just not practically possible without killing everything else, too. Therefore, given the short life cycle of said insect, attempting to kill them off so quickly would cause their populations to hyper-evolve; they’d start evolving much more quickly in response to enviromental pressures. **WB** , if you ever wanted proof of evolution, that would be it! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-are-eco-sytem-be-ok-if-we-extincted-mosquitos/77982.md?page=2)