“So, their whole ecological cycle is very different depending on the mosquitoes we’re talking about.”Īn aedes aegypti mosquito is displayed under a microscope at the National Environmental Agency's mosquito production facility in Singapore August 19, 2020. “And each one of those mosquitoes is very different in terms of their ecology, the places that they exist, if they bite people, if they bite frogs, or if they bite birds,” notes Kristen Healy, an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at Louisiana State University. The first problem to tackle here is the word “all.” There are more than 3,000 recognized mosquito species worldwide. We’ve got some issues with our itty-bitty bloodthirsty cohabitants and it may seem like getting rid of them entirely would eliminate a source of irritation, not to mention save lives.īut could we simply get rid of all of them? We asked the experts. Add in a world warming thanks to climate change, the problem could be getting worse. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has dubbed mosquitoes the world’s deadliest animal, and they are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide each year. And with those bites came a plethora of diseases from viruses and parasites hitching a ride, everything from malaria to West Nile, Zika, dengue and more.

These insects have been nibbling on us since our earliest days.

At this point in the year, we’re all quite familiar with the sounds of summer: the breeze through the trees, the birdsong, the chatter of children playing outside – and the persistent buzz of a mosquito.

Flying breeze