Why “Mosquitoes” is being discussed
The most recent Hacker News stories and comments contributing to this topic's mentions.
Are you proposing that it would be infinitely bad? That somehow extincting a few varieties of mosquitoes could cause the collapse of all life on earth? I don't get the "but what…
by losvedir · Oct 5, 2026
Most things that eat mosquitoes are actually in the business of eating any flying insect that fits in their mouth. I'd be a bit more worried about, e.g. a species being the only…
by andrewflnr · Oct 5, 2026
It's not that it eliminated mosquitoes entirely but rather that it effectively eliminated mosquitoes in the genus Aedes. These are some of the most problematic/disease caus…
by OneDeuxTriSeiGo · Oct 5, 2026
TLDR for this link is that they release male mosquitoes carrying a bacteria called Wolbachia. So this only affects the one species of mosquito they're targeting: Aedes aegypti.
by XargonEnder · Oct 5, 2026
I thought only male Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes were released, and only females bite? Larvicides can still be a thing though. No benefit in keeping those around.
by lmz · Oct 5, 2026
Something about mosquito-borne diseases lands on HN every year or so, resulting in hand-wringing about whether we should deliberately cause species extinction. I have seen the s…
by Arubis · Oct 5, 2026
Interest
Proportion of Hacker News items mentioning "mosquitoes" over time.
Mentions
Total number of Hacker News items mentioning "mosquitoes" over time.
Mosquitoes, the Culicidae, are a family of small flies consisting of 3,600 species. The word mosquito is Spanish and Portuguese for little fly. Mosquitoes have a slender, segmented body, one pair of wings, three pairs of long hair-like legs, and a specialized, highly elongated set of mouthparts forming a proboscis, adapted for piercing and sucking. All mosquitoes drink nectar from flowers; females of many species have adapted to also drink blood. The group diversified during the Cretaceous period. Evolutionary biologists view mosquitoes as micropredators, small animals that parasitise larger ones by drinking their blood without immediately killing them. Medical parasitologists view mosquitoes as vectors of disease, carrying protozoan parasites or bacterial or viral pathogens from one host to another. Read more on Wikipedia