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Mosquitos suck (no pun). Bats and spiders do too. So put all of them on boxcars and serve them the magic cool aid and dump them in the ovens and rid the world of much disease and misery. F*@k the circle of life thing. My little cousin died of malaria in Gabon in 2004.

So what purpose to fleas serve?
It doesn’t seem like anything eats them….

How about ticks?????????

You’re all stretching — just trying to find something, anything to be “right” (or, left) with this answer. Fact is, if all mosquitoes weren’t on the planet immediately — nothing would suffer. And in fact, there would be a million more people alive in Africa thanks to the stop of malaria. Fish will eat anything, mosquitoes are a staple ONLY for dragon flies, flying pond insects mostly — and these weren’t even named in what I’d read. But, they’d find other insects to ingest believe me and do, every day.

You learn something new everyday……………

Regardless however, I still really hate mosquitoes, but spiders and bats are cool creations of nature i often enjoy.

At least now I know they do serve some kind of good purpose.

Now maybe someone can explain what good fleas and ticks are to nature………………….

Mosquitoes suck. However I’m glad they feed bats & spiders some of God’s neater creations. And what about West Nile Virus spread by the mosquito.

I’m happy to defend the necessity of having mosquitoes around for the reasons stated here. They are part of nature’s incredible balancing act-one which humans (who I heard described yesterday as the ultimate “weed” on the planet) seem intent on tipping over for our short term gain and long term mega-pain!

Mosquitoes seldom bother me I have to admit. But my Mom’s brother-in-law and sister both got bitten and deadly ill from West Nile Virus. He died and she’s still suffering the effects nearly a year later. So it’s no wonder that my Mom is now paranoid about mosquitoes. She lives in the country surrounded by trees. She bought some device that attracts and then kills mosquitoes by the hundreds. I tried to explain that the odds of her killing a West Nile Virus bearing mosquito that would also have bitten her are nearly impossible. (assuming she wasn’t taking any precautions like netting and repellent. )But it will have an effect on the birds and bats who live in the woods near her.I understand her fears- but the fears are pointless and the little buggers are still part of the balance.

I seriously LOVE every creature on this planet. even if I don’t always like them

it’s amazing to me to see that EVERYthing on this planet has a purpose.

I think Cockroaches and ants are some of the most amazing creatures in excistance.
I don’t nessicarily want to see one in my cereal bowl, but I think people who have no regard for how amazing they are, are dumb, adn they are mising out on some of the most wonderful things this world has to offer.
(some people are trying to build rescue robots that move like cockroachs, to help people trapped after a diaster, becuase of how they move and stuff)

So what about slugs? My mom always complains about them because they crawl all over our doorstep each night. And don’t even ask me about when I stepped on one…with bare feet!

No one knows, however, all of the secret chemicals those mosquitoes might have. One day, one of the chemicals inside a mosquito might be used to make a new drug. If all of the mosquitoes were killed, scientists would never have the chance to find out.

Also, mosquitoes have many fascinating life styles. They carry many fascinating parasites between different animals. So for people who love to learn about the strange way that life works, those mosquitoes have a purpose that way too.

Yeah, I sympathize with the above respondent whose cousin died of malaria. Malaria’s an awful plague and mosquitos are the main vector.

The problem is that as the environment continues to change and get thrown out of whack, insects and other simple organisms are going to proliferate. We’re going to end up having way more mosquitos than the ecosystem will ever possibly need, in the same way rabbits proliferate in semi-urban areas because they have no natural predators - or at least not enough natural predators, or because people have killed off their predators, or their predators have been moved from their natural habitat due to human activities, or what have you.

So I disagree and still think mosquitos, especially in the unnecessarily high numbers that many areas have them, serve a far more detrimental than positive purpose.

Very interesting… I honestly didn’t think mosquitos were so vital! Thank you for writing this, very imformitive. :]

yeah, their purpose is population control

I hate mosquitoes with a passion, and I’m not a huge spider fan either. It is nice to know at least that mosquitoes do serve some purpose.

So, what about roaches or termites can we get rid of them?

I live in Southern Africa and, as a child, I couldn’t understand what good flies, fleas, mosquitos, ticks and leeches do, other than parasite good creatures such as us. Well flies do plenty, their lava consume dead carcasses very ifficiently and vultures also locate decomposing bodies that are hidden from view by seeing them going in and out (no kidding!). I can find no real benefit from fleas and ticks, but mosquitos breed in stagnant water, their lavae eat waste particles and ‘rejuvenate’ the water along with microbes etc. Leaches and fly lava are used more and more by modern medical teems for sucking dead blood from internal injuries. Fly lava are used to combat gangrene as they only eat dead flesh.

Yes mosquitoes are part of the environment . However on the west coast of Canada around Vancouver there aren’t any or very very few Why is that ?Could we not find out the reason for this ?
My Family in Vancouver keeps the windows open all day and night - no flyscreens - no mosquitoes.

mosquitoes do suck. this is what i wish: i wish that their bites would not hurt or itch. i would not care if their bites were harmless, i would let them feast on me!!! as long as the bite is not too ugly, if you know what i mean.

my dad is a certified bat rescuer, and from experience with bats, yes, they do eat mosquitoes. i personally love bats, and i think that they are adorable. i am not afraid of bats at all. i would die with them if they died! as long as the bites are not bugging me, i have no problems with mosquitoes. i just wish that mosquitoes were as harmless as fruit flies in the real world. that would be a truly perfect world.

If they disappeared, the animals that rely on them (and I do not know of any animal that feeds SOLELY on them) would either adapt or die out. This, too, is a natural process.

Mosquitos used to bite me all the time when I first moved to Ohio. A couple years ago a couple bats moved into our neighborhood and I haven’t seen as many mosquitos or get near as many mosquito bites as I used to.

Ok. So mosquitos are an essential part of the ecological system. I get it. But what is interesting about this is that, humans happen to be at the bottom rung of the ecological hierarchy, if you will, as so many insects, fish and so on depend on mosquitos for food, while mosquitos depend on humans for food!

So much being a human. Huh!

BEWBZ

monkeys eat fleas and tics.

Wait, how about COCKROACHES? They say that cockroaches would be one of the only things that would survive if there was ever a nuclear explosion. Well, that’s sort of ironic because I don’t really find them useful at all. Haha.

I was saying to my husband the other day, “What purpose do wasps or ants serve”? Wonder why we can’t do without all bugs? Now I see there are some useful purposes for them.

God knew what he was doing, but I was just wondering what they all are for. Guess an entomologist could tell us.

we actually need bats to produce guano (bat droppings), guano is a key component to the fertilizer needed to crops that you eat and the plants that the animals that you eat eat. also, there is a limited supply of guano (enough for only about the next 30 years)

HEATHENS!!!

What is a mosquito’s purpose BESIDES being a food source? Other than that they contribute nothing to life. Dolphins are pretty and smart. Trees provide us with Oxygen. Mosquitoes suck blood and spread diseases! Except for the pollinating mosquitoes mentioned, I don’t think there is any other purpose for them except food for other animals.

Wait, I’m confused. Saying that if the spider population decreases then other insect populations increase stands at odds with saying that spiders would have nothing to eat without mosquitoes. Obviously they have to eat other insects, if they were to affect the populations.

Also, lots of animals have gone extinct and other animals adapted around that, so if the mosquito were gone tomorrow, I’m sure bats would start eating other bugs, etc. Then again, I may be biased, since I’ve literally got fourteen mosquito bites right now.

The only useful thing that I can see about mosquitos is the fact that they are found breeding in pools of water; lakes ,rivers, ponds etc. and they serve as a food source for fish. Other than that I am at a loss. Mosquitos are horrid little creatures along with bedbugs the lot of blood sucking insects should be done away with.

No, mosquitoes do not serve a purpose. They fill a niche and survive, that’s all. If they disappeared, very little impact would be felt by humans. Malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases would disappear. They have exploited the fact that humans have exposed flesh, and the malaria agent, plasmodium, has exploited the ability to survive in both mosquitoes and humans. There will be other insects for spiders and bats to eat, other insects which would flourish in a mosquito-free world. Ponds would be filled with the larvae of other biting insects, which would increase in number, perhaps other diseases will arise because of it. Who knows? Species become extinct, others adapt and find the void. Thats the nature of, well, nature.
.

I don’t buy it! Bats can eat other insects too, they don’t have to rely on mosquitoes alone. Same goes for spiders. I have a ton of spiders in my house and no mosquitoes for them to feast on. Most of the spiders in my house eat my cat’s turds out of the litter box. As for fish, they too can eat plenty of other things, they don’t need mosquitoes to survive, and that includes birds too. Finally I’d like to mention that mosquitoes ARE one of wasps main food staples, and when mosquitoes all die out in the Fall, wasps convert to eating other things, which is why you see them hanging out in dumpsters and places like that later in the summer months. With less mosquitoes, we’d have less wasps, and that’s okay with me! Sorry, Mike, but you’re not going to convince me that mosquitoes are needed in this world. There are plenty of places where there are no mosquitoes, and other bugs, and wildlife still thrives.

DOES ANY OF THOSE THINGS YOU MENTIONED HAVE A PURPOSE?

Every life is sacred, small or big. Only those who are determined they have never taken a life, are not one with there own life. If you kill the smallest being in vain, you have thrown away what little is left of our closeness to nature.

I guess the use of mosquitoes are for other creatures… you know? even though mosquitoes just suck blood from its victim and also bring dengue that causes death… i think the main purpose of mosquitoes are for food chain… for example… it’s the food among small amphibians like frogs or for some reptiles like iguanas and chameleons. These small creatures doesn’t grow big enough and they have somehow the “immunity” against mosquitoes. Because they are actually small, they can only be fed on creatures smaller than them like mosquitoes… just like what you said, it’s for the balance of nature… Getting nutrients from a host is transferred to smaller creatures that will make them healthy. Though the main problem is, the population of mosquitoes is greater than the population of the lesser animals. (Like Jellyfish, i found from Discovery Channel that the population of Jellyfish is greater than the population of human)… What if mosquitoes disappeared? actually when they disappear there’s a great chance of lowering the number of diseases. I mean even mosquitoes disappear there are several less harmful insects to substitute the role of mosquitoes in the food chain/web. Though it’s quite impossible to put mosquitoes to extinction i guess we should get to live with it as part of the history and human cycle. Mosquitoes also existed during the prehistoric creatures and according to some excavators and archeologists they found a mosquito inside a crystalline-like stone, mosquito then became part of the history another thing man should learn. I mean we tend to discover and innovate when something happened somehow because mosquitoes are attacking its host, people tend to learn and develop more advance items and medicinal products and more innovative inventions and machines for medical technology…. Phew, after all at least, mosquitoes do have a purpose… though it’s not that helpful

For all you people who are complaining and moaning about how mosquitoes are useless and only kill people and if we got rid of them nothing would happen, please just shut up before you make even bigger fools of yourselves.

Mosquitoes play a HUGE role in this ecosystem’s cycle. Those of you complaining just have NO IDEA how important they are. Sorry for your cousin/brother/half-cousin’s-liver donor’s-mother dying from the diseases they carry, but people DIE, get used to it. It’s the facts of life that people die from disease, starvation, organ failure, etc. Destroying the mosquito population will eventually change our planet and change the way we live.

Human beings are the only “weeds” selfish enough to actually consider that a species has no purpose just because they hurt humans and spread disease. That is the stupidest and cockiest bull I have ever thought about.

Here on the East Coast, no one thought that introducing a species into the Chesapeake would do any harm. They would decrease the overflowing population of an annoying species. And then a few months later it became an epidemic, rewards being sent out for people to kill the foreign species that was destroying the ecosystem.

Another example: Yellowstone National Park when they tried to increase and decrease certain species like the wolves and the coyotes. It impacted smaller animals and plant species and almost caused complete chaos.

Anyone that has taken any Science class past 5th grade will know that every species plays a part. Humans are selfish creatures that have no right tampering with the delicate ecosystem. Even with things such as ticks and mosquitoes. Just because they bother YOU doesn’t mean they’re not important.

You guys complain about how they kill people in Africa. If the Mosquito population went down, so would fish and bats. That is not a lie, it’s not something that would take 50 years to happen, either. It’s something that would happen dramatically and quickly. Do you honestly think it’s a lie that bats rely mostly on mosquitoes? They do. Having other food sources won’t keep them alive, only a few. The fish population decreases, the animals that rely on the fish decreases, and then those animals that rely on those animals decrease and eventually it WILL lead back to us.

Think about that next time when you go running off your pointless and idiotic rants, Brocco Bahma, Joe, Labsci, and anyone else that thinks that mosquitoes don’t serve a purpose. All of you need to re-take middle school and high school education if you can’t even get that through your heads.

OK, now I understand mosquitos. Thanks for sharing.

Could someone please shed some light on what benefit we get from poison oak?

I agree with Brocco Bahma!

spiders could eat other bugs, not just mosquitos. it wouldnt be a problem if mosquitos weren’t disease carriers, i say sack them all.

I seriously hate mosquitoes, they donot have any purpose inlife what so ever I truly believe they carry diseases from one person to another. As for Fleas and ticks do we really need them around? As far as I know what possible harm can we do to our planet without those insects, that we already have done with them in it.

All this about mosquitos being necessary for the environment is missing one crucial point. Necessary for it to remain AS IT IS. Who’s to say it needs to stay this way. Let’s fix it up right. No mosquitos, no wasps, GET RID OF POTATO BUGS!!!!

Meskeets as I call em, are annoying and stupid. They bite ya and carry diseases and crap. And its just annoying….

I don’t like mosquitoes, but I do believe they have a purpose. You have named many of them. I think science has learned a lot about areodynamics from bugs such as flies and mosquitoes. There is probably something in the way a mosquito moves and eats that we can use in science or health. Many inventions in the world were inspired by animals. Maybe there is something more we can learn from them. In fighting them, maybe we can learn better how to protect ourselves from other diseases.

If so many of you think that mosquitoes are needless then what in the world are lice good for?

I guess it’s one of those things that came on Noahs Ark two by two…..:)

if they didnt serve some purpose, then why would they exist? if you look at it from a religious view, why would God, (or whoever you belive to be creator) put them on the earth in the first place? if they didnt have some purpose, or if they did more harm than good, why would God creat them? if you look at it from a scientific view, why would they have evolved? evolutions purpose is to adapt to make living easier, so why would they exist? as for diseases and things, if we eliminated everything that could possibly kill people, we would be doing more harm than good. if nobody died, the world would become over populated, there would be no food, and things would become crowded, and unsustainable. death is a part of the world we live in. i dont belive it is natural (because of my religious veiws) but we cant prevent it, it is sad of course when someone dies, but it has become nessecary in order for others to survive. (and im not saying to kill everyone, im just saying we cant survive with too many people)

so mosquitoes are helpful in my opionion. invest in some repellent.

A bat’s diet is less than 1% mosquitoes.

Yes mosquitoes have a purpose.

BUT i kno something that has no purpose.
Fleas…. no lie my teacher told me. she said spiders and multiple other insects rarely even or ever eat Fleas becaues they move to fast. and they do nothing but bite you and get blood just so they can repopulate.

and she said if fleas died out nothing would go out of wack, the only thing that will happen is that Flea treatment people will loose all there money

How about cockroaches? Do they serve a purpose? I can’t think of anything that eats them and they are just nasty!

i’ll grant that mosquitoes provide food to many animals.
what i didn’t see was that mosquitoes provide food for swimming animals, and larva, of many species.

however, considering that mosquitoes transmit malaria, and malaria has been responsible for the deaths of more humans than ALL OTHER CAUSES COMBINED, i’m not about to give ‘em a free pass for being nice guys. they’re more than a bit annoying.

1 thing goes, other thing goes. Then more, and more. Everything fills a niche. You should have been taught this is middle school.

I realize that they are important… but can I still hate em?

The fact of the matter is we guests on the earth just as mosquitoes are and we have to right to even think about irradicating a species from this earth. We are only human and we cannot tell what types of affects it could have. No one can know for sure what would happen but you can bet there would be changes. Maybe changes we as mere people cannot even imagine. Perhaps it causes a minor change to spriders which causes a minor change to other bugs and so on. but each time these changes are magnified and in what ways we cannot know. The ecosystem is a very fragile thing and for us to think we can change it is absurd. as Mimblewimble said. and for those who think it won’t make any difference is pure naivety and wishful thinking.

The slightest change is exponentially magnified with each step on the food chain.

A mosquito’s purpose is the same as yours. No more and no less.

Maybe I should quit praying to God that they disappear then…

I find what these people have said to be the biggest pile of crap Ive ever heard! BIRDS and SPIDERS NEED mosquitoes as they will have nothing else to eat??? RUBBISH!!! My god, if stupid birds are going to rely ONLY on mosquitoes to live then they deserve to die! Spiders can give up the ghost too if they are only going to rely on mosquitoes to live!

Mosquitoes pollinate plants?? They could not possibly carry enough pollen to pollinate plants properly! My god Ive never heard such dabble in all my life! These “reasons” that have been listed are only an excuse by animal “activists” to keep mosquitoes alive. The world would never, never, NEVER miss mosquitoes! Never in a million years!!

And cockroaches. We don’t need those either! Let’s put it like this……cockroaches EAT what is in your toilet! So if you did a big one in the toilet, or even if you just did one, then would YOU happily eat the food that THEY crawled over??? I SURE AS HELL WOULDN’T!!!

that’s gross, I could eat a fish that ate a mosquito that sucked my blood, yesterday.

Nice biases, people!

When I first learned of, and joined, Yahoo! Answers, I realized that this is a great fora for all types of diverse opinions and I thought that this was great. Later on I had also read insults, name-calling and other unnecessary comments. Lots of minutes spent just to read through all the garbage.

Now as to Mike, I would like to thank you for the information. Being brought up in a Jesuit school, I have learned that there IS a reason for being; all of us including animals, fishes, insects and even parasites.

We may have not liked being surrounded by some or even most of them, but we have always coped; and survived. In the case of mosquitoes, nettings and repellants, and, insect killers like spray and other gadgets are samples of man adopting to his needs.

Man has always been creative in surviving and tolerating his environs, so we can just let others be. But protecting our family from sickness would be more important. So I also subscribe to the idea that there is little harm to the total ecosystem in killing all the pests that intrude into your household.

Reminds me of the mysteriously vanishing beekeeper hives used to pollinate crops.

“Well, that’s just weird!” Not really. Someone did something and caused a reaction. Now if only we could figure out the cause…

Mimblewimble:
I’d like to reinforce this point he made. “You are GOING to DIE.” There are no exceptions to the rule. NONE.

People should enjoy the world we leave behind us as we exit, not attempt to take as many with us as possible for company. It’s just a very bad idea.

Of course, thaz just me.
Many others have chosen a darker path in life, I don’t speculate on afterlife futures… So, what do I know

ok, i have to disagree with this, because ummm Bats can eat MANY other bugs. mosquitoes aren’t their main food source. And More Bees= More plants, which means cleaner air.
and i havent seen to many Mosquitoes that fly underwater for the fish, so sorry! not convinced!
the only point of mosquitoes is that they make more and more and more. its just like humans. we’re here to reproduce.

I dont think mosquitoes would be missed that much. Humans certainly wouldn’t miss them. As for other species that depend on them for food, they would adapt to eat other insects. Afterall, mosquitoes aren’t the only small flying insect out there.

Okay… so, as suspected, the lowly misquito fills a vital niche in the world.

But - that still leaves ticks, Mike!!!

Ask about THOSE next!!! lol

~Linda

YOU are sooooooo RIGHT-Mimblewimble, there’s obviously alot of uneducated folks out there that just don’t get it= HOW SAD. Why do you think everything is so imbalanced, people? It’s people like you that are causing it, duHHHHH… Mimblew… thanks for trying to make this SINK into their brains!!!

That statement regarding spiders is ridiculous. If there were more other bugs, then there would be more spiders. Any ecologist or economist for that matter would recognize the “market adjustment” that would occur.

I don’t know how this answer missed on one of the most important things about mosquitos; far more than being a food source (few birds, bats, and insects feed exclusively on mosquitos if any; for those that do, mosquitos tend to comprise a minor part of the diet, not the majority. The cost of catching them is just to great when you can spend the same energy getting a larger plumper fly).

Anyway, to my point, mosquitos are important as disease vectors. That far outweighs it’s influence as a food source.

Actually, finding a genuine and convincing reason for the existence of mosquitoes will be difficult. Why? If you take a trip to a place like Africa, especially the tropics and experience what the natives do, your mindset will not last a second before it is changed that is, if you survive a bout of malaria as transmitted by the anopheles mosquitoes (i.e the female specie). There is no genuine reason I can readily lay my hands on for the existence of this problematic insect no matter how hard I try or how hard someone somewhere tries to paint it. The death rate from malaria alone is more alarming than that from HIV/AIDS that is dreaded all over the world. Reality check: Imagine your beloved one lies dying and you are told a very minute insect is responsible for the imminent departure of your loved ones. Then you ask yourself, what positive contribution has this insect have on your life, NONE!

So, please you cannot find any justified reason for the continual existence of mosquitoes because the disadvantages far outweighs the advantages. If you still feel adamant and still insist on your naturalist ideas, kindly take the next flight to Africa and make sure it is the tropics, I wish you come out of the experience alive!

Sorry, I have to agree with RickS. Well I’m actually not sorry but you get the idea.

A deleted post. Solve all the world’s problems and create a dilemma nothing to solve.

Screw the censors. I attached a real-world problem and saw it evaporated by the website. I don’t take kindly to that!

Only more idiots wanted apparently.

Are you an idiot?

I don’t care HOW one ’spells’ it, “Mosquito’s SUCK!!!”

Perhaps (just MAYBE) the CHALLENGE is to ERADICATE the little ‘b_st_rds’… Spiders can ‘GO’ with the mosquitos, as far as “I’m” concerned… and if bat’s do THAT good a job… then why aren’t they more plentiful in the areas that have to be SPRAYED to ‘control’ mosquitos???

LAME! Very LAME arguements!

MALARIA! (is there a ‘chorus’ saying ‘let the skeetters LIVE?”)

I am not HEARING IT!!!

Well… Maybe SOMEONE will offer ME an opportunity to LEARN more about SKEETERS!!!

In the meantime… as FAR AS I’M CONCERNED… the only GOOD ’skeeter’, is a DEAD one!

I can hardly wait to ‘hear’ all the “(CRAP)” …

Oh well….!!!

Ain’t LIFE GRAND???!!!???!!!

Citing sources is all well and good, but citing wikipedia and imdb often leads to the “999 error” problem -

This happened to me recently, and it wasn’t because of any of the technical reasons (spyware, etc) that the error page claims, because removing the link from my answer fixed the problem immediately.

Your technical people need to get onto this as it has been reported fairly widely for several years now on different parts of Yahoo! - its pretty bad that its still going on!

All living things,be great or small have a purpose in the great food chain of all living animals.Nature has a way of balancing things.Mosquitoes though a manace and very tiny play a part in controlling population boom.

In the grand scheme of things, mosquitos are just part of Nature’s way of bringing every human being pestilence and misery.

You posted this at the right time….I’m still very angry. They bit the hell out of me 3 days ago, the result is an allergic reaction that has my whole foot swollen. That is why I’am up at 4:36 in the morning……with my foot is hot water, with Epsom salt…in deep pain….when i really want to sleep…..but I can’t….because a hungry blood sucking mosquito just had to bite me. This is the result….i wish those bats and birds would of got to them before they got to me

This is a flexible world we live it.
Conditions change all the time and things adapt.

If we were to get rid of something like mosquitoes we’d see little more than slight shifts in certain areas.

Things like mosquitoes, ticks and fleas aren’t needed.
Take them away and you’ll simply make room for more pleasant insects.

What purpose do humans serve…besides themselves? are we no better than the mosquitos and cockroaches, comments claim have no purpose in the “cycle of life”? It seems to me they are more useful to the world than humans are.

Disease from the mosquitoes you get are people’s faults. without polluted areas like alleys where stagnant water is abundant there would be no disease. CLEAN the environment and you will find the purpose of mosquitoes easily!

You talked about birds, spiders, etc, but do we really need THEM? It would shake up the status quo not to have them, but in my opinion that’s not a good enough reason in itself. We talk about animals going extinct as if it is a horrible tragedy, but what harm does it really do US? Yes, it sounds selfish, but as Dennis Miller once said, “In the interspecies Battle of the Bands, humans rock the hardest!” God said “love thy neighbor, but He didn’t say anything about animals, in fact, in the Old Testament, He demanded them as sacrifices! ‘Nough said.

Who read Chris’s comment? His information didn’t even make sense. Sure God wanted them to give sacrifices but he didn’t say kill of the whole species! And what does he mean by what would it do to us? Many animals and plants contribute to human existence on Earth. Sorry Chris but i’m going to ave to give your comment one big thumbs down.

They also help cut down human overpopulation, though they could be doing a better job.

mosquitos do not receive nutrients from our blood. the only mosquitos that bite us to take blood from us are females that need it to lay eggs that will hatch. male mosquitos never bite. the females that bite take blood and return a substance that we are allergic to, which is why mosquito bites make us scratch them.

I know they are pests and up here in Minnesota we get a lot of them drilling away on us. They are a food source for birds, bugs, bats, and fish. But when they are larvae (b4 they become a drilling machine out for your blood) they are a very important food source for baby ducks.
They are a part of the circle such as everything else is in this world. What I never understood is the importance of the woodtick ….

Ahh man, I wanted to answer that question…In south america, wild boars roll around and stimulate mud, for mosquito growth, The mosquitos feed of boars and flowers, Mosquitos pollenate coco flowers which in turn produces chocolate. Mosquitos pollenate flowers, Therefore mosquitos make chocolate.

I just wanted to say that!

all I know is that every time I go abroad the mosquitos have a running buffet on me it is also only the female mosquitos that bite so they must all be lesbians! the male feed on pollen from plants I wish the birds frogs and everything in sight would eat them and leave us alone
Diana

People, there’re some things that some of you have misunderstood. First of all, some species eats only one or certain types of another species. There’re many different types of frog, spider, bat and many other organisms eat only monsquitoes and nothing else. The problem isn’t “DO WE CARE ABOUT BIRDS AND STUFFS”, but “CAN WE SURVIVE WITHOUT THOSE STUFFS!”. As we are all in the same ecosystem, the Earth, as one type of organism disappeared, more than thousand type of organisms could have disappeared, think about chain reaction.
Let me show you an example. What would happened if mice disappeared? You may think that’s no big deal, just some harmful creature disappeared? I doubt.
If mice disappeared, some bigger than mouse animals (Omnivores and Carnivores) would lessen or even disappeared. The number of certain types of herbivore would increase to a point. Some herbivores release ozone to the atmosphere (remember we’re not talking about a small amount, but a large amount like millions, billions or even trillions) that greatly contributed to global warming.
Same case as mosquitoes except mosquitoes’s case is even more series. The Earth won’t care about whether all human disappeared or not, it rather us, human, all disappeare. But it cares about insects, because they are at the bottom of the ecosystem. They are always there, before the exist of human or even before dinosaur.
Cockroaches do serve a purpose, maybe you don’t know, but there are other organisms like birds, ants and spiders, etc that eat Cockroaches. They also contribute on controlling the number of other species.
For most of you, there’re only one or a few types of Cockroaches, but in fact there’re more than thousands! And a lot of them are more than just important!
I know how much you feel uncomfortable when mosquito bite you, I don’t like the feeling either. But think about this, they serve important purpose when they only take some of your blood, we human serve no purpose to the Earth, destroy only, but we kill many other species. What do you think, ha? If you believe in God, you will know God creates every species for purposes. If you don’t believe in God, think in the way that ecosystem work and evolution, the species exist still serve purposes.

Tis better the villain you know than the one you don’t. Remove any pest and another takes its place. Nature abhors a vacuum. So any change we make just opens new opportunities for others to move in, some better, some worse. We must deal with what we have and control what we know or suffer the onslaught of a something we know nothing about.

I say kill the mosquitos!! all of them- they can spread disease- and they multiply so fast- even if we tried we couldnt make them extinct- but very nice suggestion- there are many species I’d like to banish from the earth- but, not enough time in a day to do such things! so I guess, I’ll just keep killing my share- and hope everyone else does the same!! = ) Good question- n- nice comments! very informative!!

Well actually there was a global effort organized through the UN to eradicate the mosquito population entirely. The project was very effective but over time was largely forgotten about and funding was pulled. The population we have today is much lower than that pre-mosquito project. There was a very small population of mosquitoes which repopulated to the population we have today which accounts for the smaller level of speciation among mosaquitoes. The project was meant to prevent the spread of malaria worldwide. The UN just recently, as in Monday, decided that they would attempt to curb the population of mosquitoes (not eradicate like before but rather control the population growth) by using radiation to sterilize some male mosquitoes.

The new project:
http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/rns/20761.html

Mosiquito eradication project in Chicago:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/80375.php

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1354304&pageindex=1

Remove one and another take place only happen when it’s a less important species, but not a bottom species of the ecosystem.
Maybe it could happen when it’s only one kind of the mosquitoes, but not all.
If you know the population of mosquitoes in the Earth, and how many organism depends on them.
No one organism can completely take place of another when they disappeared. If you think they can, you are too under estimate it.

It’s my understanding, and your other sources can confirm or deny it, but a mosquito needs HUMAN blood at least once every four generations, or something like this.

What on earth do you mean by “a purpose?”

Mosquitoes are living creatures and they don’t need a purpose. Like anything else, they have adapted over the years to suit their environment and that is all there is to it.

A better question would have been, “do other creatures derive benefit from the mosquitoes existence?”

mosquitoes just suck.

All you guys look like kindergarden children. I get a little more confused about the purpose of mosquitos, cucarachas, flies, etc.. But I think the most brillant human brains in the world, have just partial answers about this and other topics about the most amazing fact: THE LIFE.

Our biology/Writing Corner I.A. here at the Tutorial Center for the college says fish eat the larvae. I don’t know if anyone mentioned that yet.

If mosquitoes did not exist, their place in the food chain would just be taken by something else similar to it. Sorry, but just being a link in the food chain really isn’t enough in my book to justify their existence. It doesn’t really make up for the millions of human lives lost to mosquito-borne diseases like malaria or dengue fever. Mosquitoes are more than a minor irritating nuisance. They are actually a major world health problem, and that’s why millions of dollars are spent annually around the world to facilitate their eradication.

What nonsense about mosquitoes being a necessary food. If they did not exist, birds and spiders would eat other bugs that still existed! Contray to incressing in number, bees, beetles and wasps would decrease as they became more primary food sources, no? Bats also eat other bugs aside from mosquitos, and so do spiders, et al! Mosquitos have not been discovered to serve any unique need, and could disappear tomorrow without deleterious affect. I would throw a twilight-timed party if it occurred, to boot!

Mosquitoes like cockroaches were brought from Africa to the rest of the world.
They grow at unnatural rates on Central America because of the good breeding conditions and brought many deaths for many year because of Malaria and yellow fever. Nowadays the breeding grounds for mosquitoes are sprayed with poison on a regular basis, without it having any effect on the environment. If there were less mosquitoes there would be less spiders and lizards, well whoopdee fricking do, like if that mattered. Also if you look up mosquitoes on wikipedia you’ll see that mosquitoes only consist of 1% of the bat’s diet.
The only purpose those parasite carri