What If We Killed All Mosquitoes?

they're the deadliest thing on earth they suck your blood and spread disease killing nearly 1 million people each year are we talking about vampires lions gorillas actually none of these things we're talking about mosquitoes are mosquitoes really this deadly what would happen if they all disappeared would humanity be better off this is what if and here's what would happen if we killed all mosquitoes it may sound unusual that a little bug could be this deadly but it's true mosquitoes spread diseases like malaria yellow fever and the dengue virus they do it by biting someone who has a particular disease and then biting you and injecting their saliva into your body the saliva then enters your bloodstream causing you to contract whatever virus or bacteria that the mosquito picked up and it's not just humans they affect either animals and farm livestock all around the world suffered greatly from mosquitoes just a single bite can be fatal so how do we get rid of these bugs well first we have to figure out exactly how many mosquitoes there are in the world that's incredibly difficult to find out it's estimated that there's seven trillion of them in Alaska alone yeah that's right Alaska due to global warming and ocean temperatures rising mosquitoes can live in places like this and around the world there are trillions of other mosquitoes there's a number of ways we could get rid of them bats eat mosquitoes without any risks they can eat 600 mosquitoes in an hour so if we've had enough bats in theory they could effectively wipe out mosquitoes all around the world but then how would we get rid of the billions of bats in the sky okay maybe that's not the best idea another thing we need to understand is how mosquitoes reproduce you may think they're sucking our blood because we taste good and they're hungry but instead of feeding themselves they're actually doing it for their larvae so if we somehow got rid of all our blood and [Music] yeah that's not gonna work either instead of these options we may need to release genetically modified male mosquitoes ones that don't bite and can only produce sterile offspring it could take several decades but with enough of our genetically modified mosquitoes producing sterile offspring mosquitoes would eventually be eradicated so now that they're gone what would happen next well millions of people wouldn't be getting sick and dying each year you could enjoy being outside in the summer without any fear of being bitten and animals would be much safer as well that's right not many bad things would happen if we got rid of all the mosquitoes what about the circle of life and all that don't mosquitoes contribute to the food chain sure some birds bats and frogs eat quite a lot of mosquitoes but there's still not a hugely significant part of other creatures diets and these animals will survive without mosquitoes and although mosquitoes do pollinate plants it's not significant enough to justify keeping the species alive but still is getting rid of mosquitoes the right thing to do after all we would be getting rid of an entire species we should keep in mind that there are thousands of different species of mosquitoes but only six of them bite us and spread disease not only that but there are some theories that mosquitoes may help to protect the Amazon rainforest that's because they're so deadly and annoying to the people trying to cut down the rainforests that at times the bugs actually prevent them from doing so and let's be real for a second the human population is growing incredibly fast maybe mosquitoes are helping us to keep our population in check wait what am I saying this would most definitely be a good thing there would be less disease fewer people dying and very few negative consequences but what if instead of mosquitoes getting wiped out half of Earth's population did in an instant well that sounds like a story for another what if [Music]

Channel: What If

Views: 4,676,570

Rating: 4.8295617 out of 5

Keywords: what if, what happens if, scifi, science documentary, what if scenario, biggest questions in science, what if earth, what if all the mosquitoes dissapeared, what if we killed all the mosquitoes, how to kill all mosquitoes, how important are mosquitoes, how dangerous are mosquitoes, mosquitoes, mosquitoes diseases, mosquitoes documentary, what if mosquitoes went extinct, earth without insects, malaria, zika virus, mosquito bite, public health

Id: 9w-5wJYVmcw

Length: 4min 47sec (287 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 23 2019