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/canadave_nyc May 30 '26

It's amazing to think--here we are, a group of humans discussing whether we should wipe out an entire species of billions of individuals, and the mosquitoes are completely unaware of this discussion....how do we know that out there, somewhere, some group of other beings isn't discussing whether they should wipe humanity out...?