There are more than three thousand species of mosquitoes, which appear more often with the arrival of the summer months and make our lives miserable with both their sounds and bites. They also cause nearly two million deaths worldwide each year, as they play a role as a carrier of diseases such as malaria and West Nile virus. It may come as a surprise to you, but the reason why they are so dangerous is because they are “minnak”.
What if mosquitoes were human-sized, how dangerous would they be, could they survive at that size? Let’s find answers to these questions.
Contrary to popular belief, mosquitoes do not feed on blood. They feed on sugars and water in nectars. Then why do they bite us and suck our blood?
Because female mosquitoes only need proteins and lipids found in animal blood in order to lay eggs and continue their lineage. That’s why only female mosquitoes bite us.
A standard mosquito weighs 2.5 mg, but needs about 1 mg of blood to produce 40 eggs. They can lay up to three hundred eggs in their lifetime, which is an average of two to six weeks.
But what if mosquitoes were human-sized?
If a female mosquito was about the size of a human, weighing about 79 kg, and needed three times her body weight in blood during her lifetime, she would need 237 liters of blood for 300 eggs.
Assuming that there is an average of 5 liters of blood in the human body, a mosquito would have to suck the last drop of blood from 47 people in order to lay an egg.
After a while, the human population would start to decline and it would be difficult for female mosquitoes to find blood.
Since the mosquitoes would grow to a gigantic size, they could perhaps become a new species of prey. On the other hand, eating mosquito eggs and larvae from animals such as birds, bats, and spiders could reduce mosquito populations.
Also, human-sized mosquitoes would kill cattle, causing chaos in the meat industry and in nature.
But could a human-sized mosquito weighing 79 kg survive in our atmosphere?
Probably not. Arthropods breathe through openings called “spiracles” that connect to a branching windpipe. Thus, the oxygen distribution in their body is ensured. Also, because of this system, the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere limits their growth.
During the Carbon Age, the amount of oxygen on Earth was almost 35%. For this reason, arthropods were gigantic at that time, but today the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere is 21%.
That’s not enough for a human-sized mosquito. Even if it were sufficient, mosquitoes would have to develop a stronger exoskeleton system to support this weight. They would also probably starve, as they needed more nectar to survive.
Besides, if mosquitoes were human-sized, some of the birds, bats and spiders that feed on them would also increase in size.
We may not see human-sized mosquitoes recently, but we may see an increase in giant flies called “Gallinippers”.
These mosquitoes are 20 times larger than other flies and are native only to North America. Also, this fly species is so big that they can bite you even through your clothes.
At the same time, since mosquitoes are cold-blooded and need temperatures above 26 degrees Celsius, “Gallinippers” can easily increase their range and populations with the increase in global temperatures.
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