(Replying to PARENT post)

Yeah seriously. Eradicating mosquitoes would be vastly cheaper, save millions of lives, and improve quality of life everywhere. What good have mosquitoes ever done?

One plausible way to do this would be to engineer a male mosquitoes that can only produce male offspring. Eventually the female population would be reduced to 0.

👤Houshalter🕑9y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Mosquitoes are the main food source of some animals, which leads them to die out. Then those animals are the food source of other animals, etc. etc..

Also, the male mosquitoes also pollenate some plants and flowers, which also negatively affects the ecosystem- only the females bite.

👤GaiusCoffee🕑9y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

> What good have mosquitoes ever done?

They are apparently an important pollinator of certain flowers, including the blunt-leaf orchid.

👤squimmy🕑9y🔼0🗨️0

(Replying to PARENT post)

There is an FDA approval for testing Oxitec's GM mosquitos in a small scale trial in Florida.

There are also small scale tests in Brazil and the Caymans.

http://www.humanosphere.org/science/2016/08/fda-approves-gen...

👤iwillreply🕑9y🔼0🗨️0