Could we eliminate mosquitoes from the planet?

Page 3 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

norseamd

Lifer
Dec 13, 2013
13,990
180
106
I think we should give squirrels flyswatters and pay them to kill all the mosquitoes. I hear they will gladly work for peanuts!

fuck

the crows outside my house know i will give them food and they caw at me for some every so often
 

SMOGZINN

Lifer
Jun 17, 2005
14,221
4,452
136
There already exists a superior mosquito eating predator, the dragonfly. I've seen a huge cloud of mosquitoes quickly taken out by just a handful of dragonflies.

So what you are saying is that we need to uplift dragonflies and train them to serve as our own personal mosquito defense system? I approve of this idea. Get the geneticists on it ASAP!
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
68,332
12,559
126
www.anyf.ca
Yeah that sounds about right. Replace a species that has no trouble surviving and multiplying with one that just dies of starvation a few days after being born. How do you think that's going to go? :rolleyes:

You religious folks really don't understand evolution and natural selection do you? I mean I thought maybe you were just trolling but now I'm starting to be convinced that you actually do lack the mental capacity to understand how it works. Sad really. I want to believe everyone can understand and learn as much as anyone else if they just put the time and effort into it, but it seems as if that might not be so.
WTF it was meant as a joke.

By replacing mosquitoes with a species that can't eat or reproduce, it means they would not be any. It's a paradox. It has NOTHING to do with evolution/atheism or religion and I have no clue WTF you even brought that up. You are trolling.

I like my nanobot idea better anyway, let's just build nano bots controlled by a global defense wireless network called flynet that seek out and destroy them.

Squirrels and chipmunks with fly swatters could work too. Though they are too smart and rather wait till we swat them so they can come eat them after for a meal they don't have to chase around for. They know they still get peanuts from us regardless by giving us "puppy eyes".

At camp we used to wonder how no matter how many flies and mosquitoes we killed, the ground never accumulated with bodies. Then we saw a few chipmunks and squirrels passing by to eat them off the ground. Protein.
 
Last edited:

JTsyo

Lifer
Nov 18, 2007
11,809
944
126
People are already working on it. It's not unprecedented either, quite a few other flying pests have already been eliminated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique

There has already also been another technique used to control them. The males are engineered to produce only male offspring who will also only have male offspring. I would guess that it would half the population of mosquitoes each generation as long as the modified ones can compete with regular ones for mates.
 

tmc

Golden Member
Aug 14, 2001
1,116
1
81
saw this on FB the other day:

"what if the mosquitoes sucked the fat from you instead of blood?"

now, that is an idea. engineer a species of mosquitoes that sucked fat (and sell for PROFIT!!!).
 

takeru

Golden Member
Jan 1, 2002
1,206
8
81
There has already also been another technique used to control them. The males are engineered to produce only male offspring who will also only have male offspring. I would guess that it would half the population of mosquitoes each generation as long as the modified ones can compete with regular ones for mates.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27765974

In the new mosquitoes, the X-attacking endonuclease is turned on specifically during sperm formation. As a result, the males produce almost no X-containing sperm - or female offspring. More than 95% of their progeny are male.
 

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
19
81
Last edited:

MrColin

Platinum Member
May 21, 2003
2,403
3
81
If we wiped out the mosquitos on the entire planet, the human population of Africa would double every 5 minutes until...