Mosquitos, What Good Are They Anyway?

NPR's Krulwich on Science discusses the positive marks of mosquitos with David Quammen this morning. Here is my favorite reason, go to the link above for more:

"Knowing, as we all do, that humans for eons have been moving into forests and plains and shores and river valleys and hills, pushing animals, vegetables and minerals around in their very human way, destroying more and more life forms, and knowing, as we also do, that we are down to precious few places on Earth where there is still a rich diversity of species, have you ever wondered why, even into the 21st century, there are still large tracts of equatorial rainforest that have somehow survived human exploitation?

Who or what has defended those last outposts of ferns, butterflies, beetles and ants from humankind?

Quammen says while there may be many explanations, certainly the lady mosquito deserves credit. Every time human settlers stepped into those areas in serious numbers, they got bit, then they got sick, and then, until very recently, most of them backed off.

So all you biophiliacs, tree huggers, Green Party members: If greens everywhere wanted to say thank you to one creature, one fierce defender of ecological diversity who's been willing to bite to defend her turf, they should, says Quammen, say "thanks to 10 million generations of jungle-loving, disease-bearing, blood-sucking insects" — and especially, of course, to the lady mosquito, "nature's Viet Cong."

Hat tip to Michael Barton, FCD.