You hate them? I think...

For almost all species, self-interest is the key to their motivation. What they don't understand is their role in the larger scheme of the web-of-life. Mosquitoes, fleas, and the diseases they carry do two things for us larger animals. Balance the numbers 1) and improve the remnant 2) . If left to their own free will, many mammals would consume all the food in sight, make thousands of babies, starve and self-terminate the species. Mosquitoes can drive a moose mad and disrupt mating. Also the diseases kill some, make others unable to reproduce, and slow down somebody so he can be eaten by a predator. Together, the complex interaction of several species decides how many wolves, deer, mice, and other creatures should exist in a habitat. When that habitat is stressed, the balance changes, and some interesting plagues can result.
The rule is, nature does not decide who is right. Nature only decides who is left.

pfff, yeah. That's exactly what I said.

You do realize, of course, that you and especially your dog are far, FAR dirtier than ANY insect will ever be? Insects, especially social/colonial ones like roaches, ants, bees, etc, are METICULOUSLY clean creatures, constantly grooming themselves. They put all mammals, including us apes, completely to shame. Even the diseases that some insects (like mosquitoes) carry come not from the insects themselves but from what they've fed on. Which is, again, mammals.

Mammals: the dirtiest, smelliest, most disgusting creatures ever to hit the planet. We're just lucky that, in comparison to most mammals, we have a very stunted sense of smell.



Well, like I said, you unfortunately have to flea-bomb your place. It's not a spray; it's a wide-spread very fine aerosol-driven vapor mist that will get into/past the clutter well enough to get rid of much of whatever is already there. You do that while at the same time (eventually) offering the fleas nothing to feed on by making your pets (and you, if you want to) unpalatable, but in a safe, drug/chemical-free way. If there's no flea food available, you won't have a flea problem. It's as simple as that.

Now, if you have a heavy infestation already, you're going to need multiple bombs perhaps a few times to get rid of what you have and, yes, it's a pain to bomb. (You have to have no one in the place, seal away all food, take out the plants, etc. Follow instructions carefully.) Of course, it still won't kill everything. Some will survive because that's nature's way. So, the method is a two-prong approach: Kill what you've got as much as you can AND make survivors and any future "guests" (which your pets will always pick up) unwelcome. NO creature will stay in an environment where there's no food. So, if you want to get rid of fleas for good, this is the way to do it, or at least it's the best method I found when fleas were a problem. It certainly doesn't work immediately AND it requires some maintenance on your part in terms of remembering to hand out the garlic pills, but it does work eventually and will last as long as you keep up the maintenance. At the very worst, it will help some. Everything else that I ever tried was simply a stop-gap measure. Or far too on-goingly chemical for my likings. Or both.

*Rubs hands villainous-ly together*

Good choice my friend, you live this time.

Paksetti, no... the thought is more complicated than that.
Paksetti: "They exist to eat and fuck. I'm sure there's a better answer, but I think that's pretty much the purpose of life for most things-- to just keep living." --- not what I said.
Paksetti: "Eh. Everyone has insects in their house all the time, you just have to keep everything balanced." -- one word in common, "balanced" .. population control is essential to keep the deer from overrunning the park and consuming all the flora. The best bet is influenza or plague delivered by fleas. If the resulting epidemic kills a thousand humans, that's extra damage, but we kept the deer under control. Fleas, mosquitoes and ticks are important vectors for disease.

Hot Jesus, you missed the joke.

What we said is essentially similar, but you were more in depth and were much more eloquent.
Now it's not funny anymore, (if it ever was)

i want at least all mosquitos wiped out off the earth

And spiders too.

Removing one species leads to a chain reaction that could wipe out many species. It's a matter of balance, finding it that is. Again, to the mosquito, what is your use? The earth belongs to all of us.


Please pause and take a moment to absorb that: ALL of us.

^This. Life on Earth is a fragile and interdependent web, and while it's true that we humans are doing our best to remove ourselves from nature, we are still affected by that web. Every living thing has a purpose. We might not see it. We might think a creature, be it an insect or a microbe, does more harm than good. We might, like arachnophobes, have entirely irrational fears about certain creatures. But the fact is that every living thing fills a niche of some sort. Even some not-so-living things, like viruses, serve a valuable purpose and fill the very valuable "population control" niche. And all of those niches are important. Removing a species creates a hole in the web, or more accurately, it's like a hole in pantyhose, which starts as a little hole and just gets bigger and nastier as time goes on.

The consequences of that hole can be small -- Especially if something else moves in to quickly fill the empty niche -- but sometimes they can be truly disastrous. And the loss of a kind of insect, even "just" the mosquito, or of spiders as a whole might very well be more on the disastrous end of the scale. Because, guess what, the "lower" you go on the food chain, the MORE IMPORTANT, not less important, that creature is, because far more other organisms are depending on the "lower" life forms than they are depending on the "higher" ones. So, human beings could be wiped out tomorrow, and life would probably go on just fine. In all likelihood, we wouldn't be missed, except perhaps by those diseases/parasites that have evolved specifically to target humans. (There are a few.) But if we were to lose bees (and we are losing them), that would be a BIG problem. As would losing amphibians. (Yep, we're losing them, too.) As would losing corals (And those are dying, TOO, thanks to ocean warming). And if the plankton ever go, life on Earth, at least as we know it, is screwed.

Which isn't to say that life wouldn't go on in some way, of course. Life went on after the K/T event that wiped out the dinosaurs along with 3/4 of life on Earth. But it was an entirely different KIND of life that came to be, because the resulting environment was one that allowed mammals (and deciduous trees) to become dominant. So, if we keep going like we are, the Earth will still support life, no matter what the extreme environmentalists say. It just won't be a kind of life that agrees with us, is all.

Now, I realize that those of you who wanted certain species wiped out were probably joking. I get it. But really, it's not a funny joke. Because when something like that really does happen, it's generally a bad thing, not a good thing. Sometimes, like I said, it can be a truly disastrous-for-us kind of thing. Wiping out a species is not something to be taken lightly, no matter how "annoying" or even possibly lethal that species is from our own small point of view.

Very eloquently put, iCad.

me? well I do have a dirty mind so in that aspect maybe hehe but other than that, I feel way more clean than an insect.
a) I wash my hands constantly. when I'm picking up Rocky's crap, I use hand sanitizer before I touch my face AND wash my hands as soon as I get inside. I also wash them before I eat especially if I've touched Rocky. I think my hands are going to end up like my mom's one day. I wash them THAT MUCH. I even wash them after I'm done using a pencil even if I'm not eating.
b) I don't have any diseases. I rarely even get colds. of course I'm not going to say my immune system is perfect but it's a pretty good one since the worst I get is headaches (knock on wood, just in case I jinx it)
c) as a lady I try to avoid all things dirty. just stepping in mud grosses me out and I really watch what I eat..not in terms of dieting, I mean if I'm scared it went bad I do not take that chance.
d) I'll give you that about Rocky. he does smell at times and really bad at that but I don't blame him as much as I do the fact that we don't get to give him a bath as often as he should. although I wouldn't say hes that dirty, I've seen him clean himself like a cat many times.

guess I'm not part of this we, I have an amazing sense of smell (I'd rather have better eyesight than this because it's not very fun and almost has no benefits but oh well)

as to the flea bombs, I think I will try it if this other doesn't work. I'm just kind of in disbelief because people tell me something works and then it doesn't and other people have said that flea bombs didn't work for them. I don't want to have to spend like 50 dollars or so on flea bombs (and yes I do mean 50 because 10 dollars= 50 in my life) and then find out I got unlucky with it (because let's face it I am one of the unluckiest people)




you're forgetting about domesticated animals, they would be lost without us.

but what would be so bad about wiping out fleas? no life form needs fleas as food to live. spiders have other bugs to eat so they don't need them. as long as I get rid of them and they never come back to me, it'd be fine I know but I just honestly don't see the purpose of them.

To answer the thread title => What's the fuction of musquitos (And other annoying insects)?

I'm not certain with it but all I know is that they are here (mosquito and other insects) to balance the ecosystem...^_^

Everything are created with purpose and only GOD can answer certainly that purpose...

Or we also can in a right time or in due process...^_^

Hahaha, you're such a teenager, drake.

You may feel like you're cleaner than every other smelly human, but you're still a human. iCad wasn't talking about one person being cleaner than another, or one person having a better sense of smell than another. Put your sense of smell up against your cat- you'd lose.




(domesticated animals wouldn't be domesticated in the first place if it weren't for humans, and if we all just suddenly disappeared, the ones that don't die without us will live, have better babies, then their babies would have babies and so on--that's just nature, brah)

The simple fact of the matter, Drake, is that you are a mammal. No matter how much you clean yourself, no matter how illness-free you are (which doesn't mean that you don't carry any, BTW), your skin secretes sebum, an oil. All mammalian skin does, because it's what helps us to retain water or else we'd be quickly sucked dry in our relatively waterless environment. You're secreting sebum all the time. If you didn't, you wouldn't remain healthy because dehydration does truly devastating things to the body. As soon as you detergent yourself in the shower or by washing your hands or whatever, more replaces it. And because it's an oil, all kinds of stuff tends to stick to it. Now, we humans ARE a bit luckier than most mammals in that we have less hair than most. (The only mammals that have less are the cetaceans because, in their environment, hair would only create drag.) The combination of sebum and hair REALLY ramps up the dirt factor, hence why your dog will stink (even according to your stunted sense of smell!) more quickly than you will if you both go without a bath. But we're still dirty mammals. Every last one of us. So while you may "feel cleaner," you aren't. At all. Ever. At least, not in comparison to any insect. Even dung beetles that live in poop.

Insects (and arthropods in general) don't have skin. They have an exoskeleton, made of a remarkably-strong fibrous substance called chitin, which is sugar-based and related to cellulose, the stuff that gives celery its crunch. It's what crunches when you step on a roach. Since, unlike skin, water can't permeate chitin, it's the substance that allows arthropods to retain their water. (Much better than we do, actually; in general, insects can go without water longer than any endoskeletal creature can, even the vaunted camelids.) Chitin doesn't secrete anything. So, nothing sticks to bugs unless they make it so, which when it happens usually happens in larvae like certain caterpillars (i.e bagworms) and aquatic insect larvae, which build "houses" for themselves as camouflage/protection.

And think of it this way: Ants and other social/colonial insects live in colonies of millions, perhaps even billions, all enclosed in very small spaces. In that situation, hygiene becomes extremely important or else it's just inviting diseases that can wipe out the whole colony very quickly. So, watch an ant going about its business for five minutes some day. I guarantee you will see it pause to groom itself at least ten times during that five minutes, especially its feet and antennae. Oil-secreting mammals, even humans, simply can't compare. Cockroaches are the same. They have a reputation as "dirty" creatures, but they themselves are actually very clean. Sure, their environment might be dirty, but that's the fault of the people who create the filth, not the cockroaches. But because cockroaches groom constantly, the filth isn't transferred to them, at least not for long.

So, in the cleanliness battle, insects will win across the board vs. ANY mammal, even the most OCDly-germophobic human on the planet. It's just an outcome of our very different respective physiologies, is all. It's not a slur against humans/mammals; it's just the Way It Is. I think perhaps that people would be less grossed-out by bugs if they'd simply take the time to learn stuff like this. I cohabitate very well with ants, myself, because I know they're probably the cleanest things in my entire house. (Housework is not my forte, I'm afraid.)

So, insects: The most OCD creatures ever to hit the planet.

And like paksetti said, in comparison to most mammals we (and the other apes, actually) have little-to-no sense of smell. Our smelling apparatus is greatly atrophied simply because we evolved such that it isn't as important to us as it is to other animals. We also don't hear nearly as well as most mammals. Eyesight became the vastly primary sense for us apes, hence why we have stereoscopic vision, which gives us depth perception. And, like I said, we should be thankful for it. The world is a very smelly place, and we don't smell even a quarter of it, no matter how good a sense of smell an individual might have.

Flea bombs: They "won't work" if you use just them and still continue to have pets who will simply bring in new fleas as soon as the effects of the bomb wears off. The new fleas will cry "BANZAI!" and go to work. Like I said, it HAS to be a two-prong approach: Kill what you've got the extent that you can WHILE AT THE SAME TIME making your pets (and you, if you choose) unpalatable to fleas. You can do the latter with something like Frontline on your pets, but I prefer not to drown my pets in chemicals, thankyouverymuch, no matter how "safe" they're supposed to be. So, I went with garlic oil capsules. And it worked for me. Like I said, it requires patience and maintenance, however. There is no "instant magic cure" for flea infestations, I'm afraid. They're tenacious little buggers. And you have to bomb your whole place, too, making sure you open all the closet doors and such. If you only bomb a room a two, the fleas will just migrate to where it's safe and bide their time.

As to domesticated animals: I farm llamas and alpacas. We also have horses, dogs, cats, and chickens. All are "domesticated," but knowing them all as I do, I'm fairly certain that if I and all other humans were wiped out tomorrow they'd get on just fine all by themselves. After all, feral "domesticated" dogs and cats get on just fine. Sure, they'd have to learn to find food other than out of dumpsters or what-have-you, but I'm sure their natural instincts will kick in just fine. Humans are at the top of the food chain, as they say. As such, we can easily be done without. There are plenty of other apex predators who will easily (and gladly) fill our niche.

And FINALLY: The purpose of fleas. Like I said, ALL living things fill a niche or else they wouldn't continue to exist. If nothing else, as someone else said, fleas serve a valuable (if unpleasant) role as disease vectors. Disease may not be pretty/shiny/fun, but it (and predation) are nature's primary methods of population control, and population controls are vitally necessary. The fact that we humans have made ourselves largely impervious to predation and have made great strides in making ourselves impervious to disease, both resulting in a lifespan far longer than nature intended, is precisely WHY we have an "overpopulation" problem. As I once read somewhere: It isn't that humans suddenly started breeding like rabbits; it's that they suddenly stopped dying like flies, around the turn of the 20th century. But that's a whole other discussion. So yeah, losing fleas as a whole, as unpleasant as they are, would probably be one of the more disastrous species to lose.

I couldn't agree with everything you've said more, except I do believe you meant that as a slur against mammals. You're bigoted against mammals-- admit it! You'd rather be something less oily and bony, wouldn't you?

You're a mammal! Show your mammalian pride! Don't let those fucking insecta get you down, we're clearly part of the coolest class around.
I mean, do ants have the internet? Idon'tthinksothankyouverymuch.


(fuck platypodes)

OK, I admit it. I'm actually a dragonfly in disguise. Can't you tell by my avatar? It's why I loooooooooooooooove mosquitoes, you see. Very tasty. Don't let my fondness for bats fool you. In reality, they are evil competitors for my tasty, tasty mammal-blood-filled mosquitoes. Mmmm mmm gooooood!

well I know that the human body is disgusting (nutrition class made me lose my appetite for almost a week and women's bodies can be the worst. the worst thing about that month for me is not the cramps but the messes and the smell *shudders*) but it doesn't change the fact that I still think bugs are disgusting (esp roaches and dung beetles) and kill those who get in my way. I think like you said the environment the roaches are in doesn't help. I don't see it as a big deal because bugs are not as sentient as we or any other mammal are (it's not like animal abuse) and it's not like I kill all of them..it's only if they're in my space. you can't rightly tell them they're in your space or smack them til they go away because they won't understand.
bugs of course won't bother me as much if we ever get these fleas away

as to the flea bombs, that's my point. fleas are too difficult to get rid of and when you're talking to someone who has impatience as her middle name, it explains my aversion to fleas. well the thing is we kinda already got the Frontline and if the vet recommends it, could it really be that bad? I would think they'd know better than anyone about these matters.

well I'm not thankful for my eyesight. I mean I'm glad I'm not blind of course but I feel like I got the short end of the stick. I got a great sense of smell and hearing instead of good eyesight. what can I do with my sense of smell? I can't sniff around like a hunting dog with it. as for my hearing, that hasn't benefited me because I have bad audio comprehension..it's gotten to the point where I obsessively check the door thinking someone's knocking when really it's just people upstairs. also the really bad part about my hearing is Rocky literally hurts my ears..it'll hurt even sometime after he stopped barking (not that I don't love him I just wish he'd be more quiet or one day I'm afraid my eardrum will break with all that noise)


but emotionally you have to admit it'd be pretty difficult for them to cope..I know for example Wally from my childhood, his previous owner died and apparently that's why he would whine all the time (even when we had him). I'm not going to say he wasn't happy with us but you could tell he never got over that.

Drake, it's one thing to want to rid your house of fleas for the comfort of the humans and their animal friends living in it and it's quite another thing to wish them gone from the planet.

Your dog, Wally, wined for his previous owner because he is a pack animal. If he had lived only with other dogs and was separated from them, he would miss them just as much. So, if you're suggesting that domesticated animals would suffer emotionally if humans quit the planet, it would only be for the individuals that had attachments to humans. The species as a whole would get on fine.

Drake. Silly, willy, you.

Did you *really* have to quote ALL of that?

I don't know why. But, people who say, "I hate this animal. It bothers me. So therefore I want it's entire species to be destroyed."

They just sound really ignorant to me. Look at the bigger picture instead of the mirror all day long. (If you know what I mean)

Well, mosquitos hate me back, also bees, wasps etc, so we're even.

Actually, I really doubt that they hate you. They may think of you as food, or as a threat, or as a breading mechanism, but I doubt that they hate you unless you make a habit out of torturing specific individuals so that they have some reason to recognize you.

You're entitled to your opinions, of course, Drake. If bugs skeeve you out, then nothing I can say will make you change your mind, especially not if we're talking about a phobia, as in a genuinely irrational fear. And I can understand that being inundated with bugs can make one not like them very much. I lived in some roach-infested places when I was young, poor, and living in New York City, and at those times going to the bathroom at night was always an "adventure." But when I learned a bit about roaches, I understood them better, and then they didn't gross me out as much and I could tolerate them more easily...although they WOULD still startle me because I seemed to live in places where the flying kind had infested the place, and those suckers seemed to come out of nowhere! But with education came less gross-out and therefore less fretting on my part. So, I suppose my aim is always to educate, about any subject about which I happen to be knowledgeable. I'm not saying that you should never kill a bug, and fleas ARE disease vectors (But roaches aren't) and you don't necessarily want to live in a place infested with them. But I AM saying that maybe if you understood bugs better, you might not be so grossed-out by them, and then you'll just be happier in general. Especially if you're going to keep having mammalian pets because I'm afraid that fleas (and ticks and other unlovelies like internal wormy parasites) are part and parcel of any dog/cat that goes outside or that lives with other pets that do so.

And I'm afraid fleas DO require patience to get rid of, once you've got them. There's simply no way around it. So, if you REALLY want to get rid of them, you'll have to find patience within yourself somewhere. Only you can decide if it's worth the effort to try to do so. As for Frontline...Sure, it's been declared safe, and vets will hand it out like candy. That doesn't mean that I want my babies covered in it. Remember, I'm a hippie. Chemicals and I do not get along well, so I will always try natural remedies before I'll haul out pharmaceuticals and pesticides and such. So no, I'm not going to recommend Frontline to you, but if after you do some reading about it, that's your method of choice, by all means go for it. You'll still need to get rid of what you already have in your place, though. I'm afraid that I never found any effective non-chemical way to do so, however.

Regardless of how bad your individual eyesight might be, primate eyesight (including that of humans) is light years of ahead of most other animals', particularly when it comes to color perception and depth perception. I'm not necessarily talking about acuity, which of course varies from one person to another and which of course generally deteriorates with age, but rather to the basic properties of primate eyesight in general. And our hearing and smelling is light years behind most other animals'. It's just a matter of what became important (and what became less-important) as we evolved as a species, is all. Just be thankful that you can't hear all that Rocky hears because if you think the barking of a small dog is piercing...Yow. I'm glad of the things we can't hear. And smell.

And I think you're human-ifying dogs a bit too much. Like VerDeTerre said, they are pack animals, and as such are obliged to form bonds with those they live with. Of course, they're intended to live with/bond with other dogs, living in extended families like coyotes and wolves and such, but since humans found them useful, they adapted to bond with humans, too. So yes, if that bond is severed, they will feel the loss, particularly if they are dogs that don't live with other dogs. However, dogs don't have the psychology that we have. It won't cause them permanent emotional scars from which they'll never recover, blah blah. Rather, they are very adaptable, as are all animals. So, if forced to do so, they will simply replace that bond with others and, if humans aren't around, it will be with other dogs, as nature intended. So, if I and my family are gone tomorrow, I'm sure my pack of 6 will get on fine. Especially because they're already a pack amongst themselves, complete with a stable, generally peaceful hierarchy. In general, I'm talking about survival, not about happiness. A dog may whine when it loses its human master, but in all likelihood it WILL ultimately survive because even though it's been brainwashed, in a way, its basic survival instincts are still there.

It was a figure of speech.