logoalt Hacker News

kubanczyk • today at 3:28 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

Humanity is eradicating entire species left and right. Mosquitoes are our worst enemies. Can we have a deal to save some little poor amazonian frog (the doomed one which has only ~100 animals and 1 location left) and after we accomplish that, in return wipe out one species of mosquitoes?


Replies

Arodex • today at 3:36 PM

I hope the Amazonian frog doesn't depend too much on mosquitos as food. Or that by eradicating mosquitoes, insectivorous animals don't eat more of other, less abundant and fast-breeding, insects as a replacement and it starved the Amazonian frog.

(I don't know what the Amazonian frog eats; my point is that biotopes are complex and second- and third-order effects need to be monitored. That's why smaller interventions - e.g. making humans poisonous to mosquitoes, pushing them to the evolutionary path of avoiding humans - would be better than whole eradication.)

➕ show 1 reply