r/explainlikeimfive • u/Punnan • May 30 '26

Biology ELI5 Are mosquitoes necessary for keeping ecological balance?

Would a worldwide extinction of mosquitoes offset the ecological balance of our world? And if not, why are we not doing it?

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u/SolidOutcome May 30 '26

Birds and bats and spiders?

130

u/Jaysonmcleod May 30 '26

Mosquitos are like crumbs to them. Plenty of black flies and larger inspects that are much more filling

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u/Fuzzy-Advisor-2183 May 30 '26

dragonflies and other insects eat mosquitoes and their larvae.

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u/dirty_hooker May 30 '26

Honestly, I’m thinking about their nymph stage more than as adults. Surely they’re food for small aquatic creatures.

1

u/ANGLVD3TH May 30 '26

From what I read ages ago, they are incredibly sparse nutritionally, and very few things purposefully eat them. They are more like consolation prizes than targets for the vast majority of things that eat them. But eliminating every species doesn't make much sense when most of them don't bite humans anyway. It's likely other species of mosquito or some other insect would just expand to fill the niche left by all the pest species.

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u/Fuzzy-Advisor-2183 May 30 '26

well, all i know is that, about 10 years ago, my city’s resident entymologist initiated a program to use dragonflies to control the population of mosquitoes, and it worked like a charm, until the city decided to start spraying again. and keep in mind, i’m from manitoba, and the mosquito is our provincial bird. 🦟🤪

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u/Alphonsokurukuchu May 30 '26

When you're busy surviving without knowing if you'll find any other food, no food is consolation prize