'There is not one insect species if I had the power would I exterminate.' - Not even mosquitos? :)

@FalseIdentity Mosquitos pollinate many types of plants, are sources of food for many vertebrates including birds (after reducing mosquito populations, bird populations have been shown to decrease, which allows other flying pests to thrive), etc etc etc., and what makes you think that no other insect will evolve to capture the massive nutritional market of human blood?

While I appreciate the sentiment and the heartfelt answer, very little of it is dedicated to actually answering the question but is rather side-tracking to praising the insects. Maye the first paragraph and the penultimate provide some relevant information.

Very few insects are 'bad' guys - In fact most of those we think of as "bad" guys are the guys doing the cleaning up of our own dirty work. Think cockroaches, wasps and maggots and realise that they often eat and dispose of our waste for us! Amazing :D

@NickBull "what makes you think that no other insect will evolve to capture the massive nutritional market of human blood?" By then, humans will have evolved and changed too. Also, if we had the power to make mosquitoes extinct, presumably we could kill off whatever new type of insect that started preying on us as well.

@NickBull Also, it's not like the market is capped on human blood. There's no real competition for resources on the human blood front. If it were likely that another insect would evolve to drink human blood, mosquitoes existing isn't really preventing that from happening. It's not like there's no blood left after a mosquito bites you.

@FalseIdentity I would happily wipe out Anopheles gambiae which is probably responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. There are plenty of other mosquitoes to pick up the slack.

@Shufflepants I agree with the points you make, that we also would evolve and could potentially kill off a new bloodsucker and that there are other bugs that are already in the niche. I'm suggesting that going down that slippery slope of killing off an entire insect population leads to bigger issues. To take your points as examples, would we kill off the "new mosquito"? What effects would that have? What about the next? And what about all the other bloodsuckers, do we kill off anything that sucks blood? Seems like a very bad idea imo. :)

@FalseIdentity ...not even mosquitoes, flies, horse flies...we humans are barely beginning to understand the big picture of interconnectedness. We touch ONE thing and change it and we WILL be making a bigger 'problem' for ourselves down the road. Not to mention insecticide. I am totally against us humans thinking we should ever imagine a genocide of any life form just to make our lives temporarily or transparently better. We humans really need to get our act together, we are part of the macro ecosystem of which every part has evolved to be necessary. Just because we don't see it...

...doesn't mean IT ain't there. What we humans don't understand we fear and what we fear we try to control, extinguish without ever knowing the big picture. There will be no garden in the 'bubble' with the human who is afraid to death of insects. I can not imagine NOT being plugged into the soil, the insect populations, rodents, ravens, feral cats, bush bunnies on and on and on...grins, I think just coming to live with me for a month will cure anyone of unnatural phobias!! And living simply, tiny footprint use of resources is not tough at all for anyone.

@Shufflepants: we have the ability to make mosquitos extinct. Using en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique with genetically modified male mosquitos that cause the females to have non-functioning wings. The technique has been used successful on some other nasty parasitic insects.

@NickBull: and other studies show just the opposite, that other non-parasitic species would fill the gap left by eradicated mosquitos and ecological damage would be minimal.

@stormy: let's see you keep up that sentiment when you are dying of malaria, have a en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochliomyia larvae burrowing into your skin, or otherwise are at the receiving end of other nasty things some insects cause.

@whatsisname I'd prefer to err on the side of caution when it comes to changing nature so vastly, there are many examples where we have made a seemingly insignificant change that has had massive consequences for the environment!

So, someone tell me why we still have small pox when we have the chance to eradicate it while it is still in vials?

@whatsisname Animals have excellent immune systems. As long as animals, and humans are included, are not living in the stress of population overload those immune systems take care of us. Once the stress of over population reduces our immune system then we are in trouble. Then we see population increases, slow. Homosexuality is part of this population explosion negative feedback. We humans are in no Universe I know smart and wise enough to mess with changing anything. Learning to live with all other life is far more important to learn to do. We TRY ideas before those ideas are credible.

Grins, I actually have experienced illnesses that were life threatening; Pertussis twice in my life and as an airforce brat vaccinated up the ying yang. Ugh. Pneumonia twice, I had a collapsed lung that will always be susceptible to Pleural Pneumonia. I live off grid, showers are a luxury. Hot water is a luxury. Humans have become very stressed and 'delicate' this last half century. I, little old me, will never fear mosquitoes, flies, rodents, bacteria, virus they are part of life all around me all the time. Eliminate standing water, every bit of it on your property.

'Studies' show what the person making the study wants to show, to prove. No studies are credible enough to start playing with making nature better?!!. We know so little and rely on fake studies to DO things when we should back the truck up and learn an awful lot more before TOUCHING changing anything.

@NickBull You are right, your humility about life around us all is perfect. Wish there were a lot of other Nicks...human arrogance is going to get us all killed.

I remember something about spiders all have the same venom, some more distilled, others with larger fangs to deliver MORE of the venom. Grand Daddy Long Legs! I remember reading they were very very poisonous but their syringes were too small to harm mammals. I also remember playing in Arizona in these park, barbeque areas where we were playing aliens and spaceships...we'd throw gravel beneath the barbeque (like a kitchen counter) and hordes of Grand Daddy Longlegs would stream out in the thousands. Made for lots of excitement...

@PaulStenne "answering the question" in robotic voice...this world is my world, this world of plants and animals and life and there is NO WAY I will focus on answering the question when the person did not know what to ask. I did, cough cough, mention the sterilized world of hydroponics. The answers you've seen trying to get Stelle to seek help is what she needs to read, nothing else. Otherwise, you'd be guilty of promoting a very serious and very sad condition. Girl in a Bubble wanting to garden....hummmm.

"The client is NOT always right"...not in my world.