I imagine a world without bees and wasps to look more like those in my dinosaur books.
yeah, nature does not owe you safety, which is why i kill wasps on sight because I’m part of nature. get fucked, wasps, we all know you’re just fascist bees.
Bugs are cool as long as they are spiders who exclusively eat other bugs. And pill bugs.
Bees, wasps, ok, got it.
But mosquitoes? I’be yet to find a biologist that would advocate for preservation of mosquitos. Kill them with fire.
Nah that’s just female mosquitoes. Male mosquitoes are pollinators. Unfortunately, male mosquitoes need female mosquitoes.
Mosquitos are one of the most prolific pollinators, I think you’d find most biologists would tell you this.
Damn, can’t even hate on mosquitos. Where will this ever end?
BTW I recently learned the itchiness is just allergies. Some people aren’t allergic to mosquito bites and donate their blood to them without consequences. Other than the odd transmitted disease, of course.
Frankly I’m waiting for humans to start infecting mosquitos with something instead of the other way around.
really, they are that relevant in pollination too? I thought it was some nutrient feedback link from large fauna to lake environments.
Here’s some mostly true facts about them in an easy to digest way:
https://youtu.be/Hz_DslzN2IA?si=NjBOK8LQxEDV_BBB
But yes. Mosquitos are more than just blood suckers.
this is great how did yt never recommend this guy to me, I’m always watching this sort of stuff :3
All his true fact videos are amazing and pretty well researched.
He just makes them palatable, enjoy!
That thing we do where we dump genetically modified mosquitoes into an area to make sterile mosquitoes and kill them off is awesome because the gene dies out after a few years. It’d essentially a temporary and mild extinction we can do. It’s amazing because we don’t even need to decide if it’s correct to kill off a species.
It’s also worth noting that this technique has been used primarily in urban areas with introduced species of mosquitoes. It would have different effects if done in wild ecosystems on native species.
Ehem
where is this from?
There’s a backstory that’s revealed throughout the first Lilo and Stitch movie that Agent Bubbles was in the CIA in Roswell NM in the 60s and was able to smooth over an intergalactic incident by convincing the intergalactic government that earth is a critical ecosystem for protecting the endangered mosquito and to classify Earth as a wildlife preserve.
So there’s jokes peppered throughout the film as Pleakley joins the escaped prisoner capture mission on Earth to ensure minimal disruption to the mosquito food chain.
In case its not obvious, I recently rewatched that movie with my kids
never watched it but the movie poster never suggested to me such a story! I thought stitch was just an ugly koala like animal
Stitch is fucking awesome, wtf is this heresy
The first film is actually very worth watching. The TV series is worth paying attention to with your kids, at least for the first episode or two
Curious how the non-humans will look in the live-action version coming out. They got Stitch right, at least.
almost right, still looks like an animated plush toy rather than an animal. they’re so close to getting out of the uncanny valley but didn’t quite make it
But the thing is, Stitch DOES look like a plush toy. To make him look realistic they’d have to change his design quite a bit.
Aren’t they a major food source for other animals?
I feel like humans are the only species whose extinction would not have a negative effect on Earth’s ecosystem (quite possibly a positive one)
Aedes mosquitos serve no known ecological purpose. They are purely parasitic, are not unique pollinators (as in, any plant they do pollinate is also pollinated by other species), and do not make up a substantial portion of the diet of any species.
I would venture to say their extinction would have a positive effect on the Ecosystem by closing that transmission vector for the diseases they carry.
I don’t advocate human death obviously but with the specific comment you’re replying to:
humans = bad for the environment
mosquitos = less humans overall
so mosquitos may be good for the environment in the most assholish of ways.
how many billionaires have mosquitoes killed so far? that is the correct question
Humans are not bad for the environment. Capitalism is bad for the environment. Before imperialism and capitalism, most places on earth were populated by indigenous humans who actually protected the land they relied on to survive. There was no drive to exploit the land for all its resources, and there was an existential motivator for preserving nature as best as possible.
See OP’s comment in a different thread: https://lemmy.world/comment/11768484
arguably, if we’re talking about what’s bad for the planet, you could easily just make the argument that humans are over populated due to our advances in science and engineering allowing us to both live longer, and protect ourselves from the various threats in the environment meant to keep is at a reasonable level of population.
Presumably, mother nature never intended for species to be consciously countering her very own playbook at every fucking turn possible.
overpopulation is a fascist dogwhistle, just so you’re aware
Mother nature never intended anything because mother nature is just random chance and multiplication of the best fit
Yeah sure, humans outside of current realities don’t have to be bad for the environment…but we do live in that reality where most humans are really bad for the environment and mosquitos are killing tons of us.
Again I’m firmly on team human, fuck mosquitos. Hopefully some day we can get to a point where less humans isn’t good for the environment.
So basically disease wifi, then :)
Could it possibly act as a form of reservoir for diseases that control the size of certain fauna, like…apes?
All I could find as a positive for their existence is that in the past they have kept humans from inhabiting rainforests and marshlands, and more generally control where grazing animals can feed.
Good to know we are not alone!
Fun fact: I’ve been doing a lot of reading about indigenous peoples, and one of the constant themes is how those peoples’ traditional life ways were net positives for the environment. In California, for instance, Native American agriculture involved controlled burns every twenty years or so - keeping the soil fertile and encouraging a healthy mix of the “wild” species they cared for. They had been doing that for maybe 20,000 years. So when “environmentalists” in the early 20th century decided native lifeways were primitive and bad for the environment, and established enormous national parks where natives were no longer permitted to hunt or gather and fires were stamped out immediately, those national parks turned into tinder boxes - instead of the controlled burns the plants had evolved to take advantage of, we ended up with decades of fuel building up in the undergrowth, turning into massive uncontrolled burns that killed everything, and then invasive species rolled up and finished off the native plants.
“But untouched pristine wilderness”… No. That never existed. That’s a racist trope spread by white colonists who wanted to think of Native Americans as enemies of nature in order to justify genocide. It’s the opposite of the noble savage myth and equally racist. Fuck John Muir.
Over and over again, when you compare areas where indigenous people had lived in their traditional lifeways to areas where the people were killed or exiled but the environment was left untouched, the areas where humans were genocided have less species diversity, less fertility, and less healthy environments overall.
And if we, 21st century humanity, can use our science and technology to rediscover the old knowledge, we can take up our previous role and manage the environment around us for the benefit of all. Hell, in a lot of environments we have a duty to do so - we brought the rabbits to Australia, who’s going to get rid of them if not for us?
And all that rant is to say, humans aren’t the problem. Capitalism is the problem. Greed is the problem. Humans have lived as beneficial parts of the environment for approximately 150,000 years and we can do so again.
humans have invented capitalism therefore humans are bad for the ecosystem. In just a century, it surpassed whatever good we did in the past.
Adding to that, indigenous Brazilians in the Amazon Basin area effectively created and spread terra preta (dark earth), which is extremely fertile and have been doing that for several centuries, that’s also a net positive for the environment
Adam Smith stands to speak as the ship rocks with the waves.
“The creation of wealth is what matters. If an industrious businessman wants to use available resources to create goods which he can then sell in the market he should be applauded for producing something of value. No one should be allowed to stifle industry.”
“But how can you not see what harm you are causing? By promoting this naked greed you endanger us all. Every day the planks of our ship grow thinner. And for what? So that some baron can collect more of our coin?”
“Tecumseh, you are a simple minded savage. The items for sale in the market today: toothpicks, wooden spoons, hair combs, if they didn’t have more value in that form then nobody would pay for them. The planks, the mast, and the deck boards of the ship must all have less value than the products made from them. The market has decided it is so.”
“This market is destroying the very foundation of our life. Even now the water is knee high in the bilge and rising faster than we can bail it out. We lived in harmony with the ship for years. But ever since you established the market your ‘businessmen’ have been tearing the ship apart. How can we continue to live if the ship is sinking?”
A loud crack as one of the spars snaps sending splinters raining down on the deck. Several well dressed passengers scramble to collect the pieces.
“You see, Tecumseh, even on a collapsing ship there is opportunity for profit. You can’t deny the genius of the market. And if the ship starts to sink the market will substitute another, better ship, as soon as it is profitable.”
“Sigh. Only when the last mast has snapped, the last plank has broken, and our ship is underwater will you realize that coin will not keep you afloat.”
About the national park undergrowth…how about the option to release herds of goats to eat all that extra stuff on the ground to avoid having it burn eventually?
I’m not an expert, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. If goats aren’t native to the area, we’d want to be careful not to do more harm than good (like, what if the goats like the native plants but don’t eat the invasive species), ofc.
It’s certainly better than the logging industry’s argument that they can replicate the effects of forest fires by clear cutting old growth forests.
If nature doesn’t owe us safety, we don’t owe it kindness either.
What in the giving tree is this bullshit?
More wasp propaganda. Nature does not owe me safety. My house siding is NOT NATURE. I WILL REVEL IN THEIR DEATH THROES.
Bees are like carpenters, they carry a knife but you’re not worried they might stab you for no reason.
Wasps are like meth heads.
They’re like meth head gang members that also call their gang to attack you after they do. That’s what terrifies me of them.
you leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone.
Nah thats bees. Wasps are angry bastards who will attack with no provocation.
If only that were true.
Libs say that about everything and it’s never true.
Huh?
I’m with you. There are 3 European Paper wasp nests under my patio that have been there since spring. I have yet to be stung.
I’ve been thinking to get a bee suit to move them in the event they do sting me. Otherwise, I’ll remove the nests this winter.
When they start getting cold they might start stinging because why not? They’re gonna die anyways.
Key word. “Might”.
listen, i didn’t ask to be born with a functional aversion to isopods and insects in general, ok.
I didn’t want this shit, but i got it anyway.
They didn’t want you either, but here you are.
im pretty sure the insects don’t care, they keep showing up in my room and i keep killing them.
but mosquitoes though
They have actually exhaustively studied this, and they offer zero benefit, they aren’t even a good food source for any known animal.
The risks associated with mosquito eradication are extremely low.
That’s like the only bug that’s like that. The rest are crazy important to their ecosystems.
Don’t bats eat mosquitos?
Sounds like massive human bias at play. Any source?
This is just plain false. Them and their eggs are an important food source for all kinds of aquatic animals and birds. Also, their larva remove contamins for water.
Even logically this doesn’t make sense. What’s more likely: every insect is extremely important except one, or humans are wrong (as we so often are) about one species of insect?
The specific mosquito species that carries malaria isn’t all that important. Other mosquitos will occupy it’s niches. That’s the mosquito people want to eradicate
There are fish which are eating the larvae and also adult mosquitos.
They don’t feed exclusively on mosquito larvae/eggs. They can easily switch to another source.
I wonder how much has been studied about the ability of the other species to proliferate enough to make up and not be eaten out of existence. The mosquitos existing may not be the limiting factor on the population size of other species.
Bed bugs?
Huge food source for cockroaches, which are in turn a huge food source for birds and small mammals.
They live fucking everywhere too, including in caves and drainage systems.
So what you’re saying is they should stay far away from civilization…
who is putting their bed in a cave
Multiple people in opal mining areas of Australia and at least one dude in a ghost town near death valley and at least one hotel off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more
sources?
Ticks can eat shit and die too
I will not stand for this Pro wasp propaganda!
Paper wasps usually are fine unless you get too close. I opened up the old toolbox on my grandad’s tractor (parked outside, lid slightly ajar) as a curious kid. I was greeted by angry buzzing followed swiftly by stinging.
I also have some on the outside of my carport where the roof overhangs a bit. I could harvest my peppers a couple meters below them without issue. Once I got a little close and one did the diving/swooping “sod off” manoeuvre, but otherwise never bothered me. Their nest got taken out by a typhoon a few days ago, however
I’m torn by spider wasps. I get irrationally angry when I see one of my wolf spider buddies getting dragged across the yard to their death.
That’s a sign of a healthy ecosystem. Predators are more likely to be keystone species. Spider wasps are predating on predators. You’ve got enough spiders to keep the bugs in control and wasps to take care of the extra spiders? I’m jealous!
Wait, if spider wasps hunt spiders, what do wolf spiders hunt?
Believe it or not, cats.
Pest control guy killed the wasps on my balcony without asking :/ I don’t even use the balcony, they were just chillin. Now theres just a pile of corpses
OP:
Credits to LittleFuzzyWasp
Shilling for big waspa. I shoulda known.
Everyone thank OP for pollinating!
He’s a fucking wasp, he pollinates nothing but rot and death and misery.
Death, misery, and fruits!
