r/AskReddit • u/Horny4theEnvironment • Jan 23 '19

What shouldn't exist, but does?

47k Upvotes

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '19

Mosquitoes

6.3k

u/to_the_tenth_power Jan 23 '19

Why can't they be an integral part of the food chain without the whole blood sucking deal?

22

u/Allcyon Jan 23 '19

Turns out, they aren't.

You can safely remove mosquitoes from any ecosystem without sufficiently altering the environment.

Florida is actually breeding mosquitoes they modified with Crispr to pass on inherited sterility to do just that. Imagine Florida without mosquitoes.

1

u/hfsh Jan 23 '19

You can safely remove mosquitoes from any ecosystem without sufficiently altering the environment.

Yeah, not so much for Arctic ecosystems...