• YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
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      1 month ago

      Wasps are actually pretty cool by in large. I’ve only been stung twice by them. Once when I was a kid and it sucked and also don’t remember what I was doing. The most recent time was a few weeks ago. They built a nest in the control area of a dryer I was selling. I stuck my hand right up in their nest, and felt what I thought was electric shocks despite this dryer being unplugged for a few days. I don’t blame them and the pain subsided in minutes(also wasn’t very bad to begin with). And they are a critical player in agricultural pest control. I run into wasps all the time and have only been stung twice in forty years. Wasps, like spiders, are bros as far as I’m concerned.

      • TodaviaTyler@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Alas, I legitimately have spheksophobia. I appreciate their role in nature, but I don’t want them anywhere near me.

        • YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
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          1 month ago

          That’s fair. But as someone who rarely gives a fuck about my own, let alone others around me, safety. They seem timid to sting. I’ve been stung as many times by bees, and only when I was young and extremely reckless.

          But you do you homie. Please just don’t kill non ground dwellers haphazardly.

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Wasps are just fine. We’re recently learning their tiny brains have enough pattern recognition to recognize/remember a human face. Guess how they feel about humans screaming and waving and spazzing out? They never touch my pet pig, because he doesn’t hassle 'em. Let a nest grow under my front door, deliberately avoided looking at them, stayed chill. No problem.

        HORNETS OTOH CAN DIE IN A FUCKING FIRE.

  • 58008@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    We’ve successfully extinctified hundreds of species through our very excellent human-centric activities. I’ve yet to see any environmental fallout from it. Where are the secondary and tertiary extinctions of the animals that depended on the first lot we rubbed out? Where are the corpses left in the wake of the dodo’s disappearance? Big Environmental Science™ won’t tell you, because they can’t. They’re shills and liars, all of 'em. Rich elites who make bank on selling textbooks at a 1,200% markup.

    Who’s up for starting a truthseeker podcast with me?

    /s

  • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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    1 month ago

    How many species of birds and bats eat just mosquitoes though, or a high enough percentage that they would go extinct rather than shift to rely more on their other prey species, even if at a smaller population? And are those particular species of birds and bats worth the consequences of having mosquitoes?

    • CaptainBlagbird@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Which would maybe force some other animals to change their behaviour slightly more, which in turn affects yet other species. And so the butterfly effect rolls on.

      Or it doesn’t and the system stabilises in another state. Who knows, can we actually know it with a high enough certainty or are the dependencies and behavioural guesses too complex?

      • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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        1 month ago

        I mean, has the system ever not eventually stabilized in another state? The fact that we have had extinctions, quite a lot of them even involving most species that have ever existed, and yet complex life and ecosystems still exist, would suggest that life will find a way to adapt around such a loss given time.

  • wheeldawg@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    I probably don’t care about those plants or anything they depend on.

    At least not enough to think mosquitoes are worth it.

    I couldn’t give less of a fuck about roaches, they ain’t bother me, I ain’t bother them. But mosquitoes? Purpose of no purpose, fuck them right to hell.

  • Match!!@pawb.social
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    1 month ago

    i am under the impression that mosquitos, as an invasive species, do not fill an important ecological niche and could go extinct and be replaced by other insects

    • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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      1 month ago

      This has been a common sentiment but it hasn’t been proven in any substantial way to my knowledge. I personally doubt it’s accurate. That’s not to say the entire ecosystem would collapse but there would likely be consequences.

      That said, the other commenter is correct that there are many introduced mosquito species that could probably be eradicated from their non-native range without major ecological harm. And the species that are the worst pests in human cities tend to be introduced, so eliminating them might significantly reduce the level of bites and disease transmission for people.

      • cm0002@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Mosquitos are a nuisance to every mammal, I think if we could talk to animals this is how it would go down

        Human: “So anyways we’ve been mulling over making the mosquito extinct, but it might have some consequences for yo…”

        Mammals: “WTF BRO YOU COULD HAVE DONE THAT THE ENTIRE TIME! WHY TF ARE YOU STILL HERE GET RID OF THOSE FUCKERS!”

        • Scubus@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          TBF humans historically have been pretty lax in doing anything simply because it was a good thing to do

        • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
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          1 month ago

          Yeah I mean the ethics of how humans relate to wild mammals are so complicated and confusing that I’m not even going to go there.

  • Zerush@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    We are the only species out of the ecologic system, we need the nature, but the nature don’t need us.

    • grysbok@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 month ago

      It’s spring (your hemisphere may vary) and time to set out tick tubes!

      Tick tubes are cardboard tubes stuffed with cotton fluff soaked in permethrin. Mice use the cotton to make nests. The permethrin kills ticks on the mice, reducing the tick load of the area. It doesn’t hurt the mice, and is much more targeted than just spraying the whole yard for insects.

  • thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I thought some of the specific mosquitoes that prey on humans can be killed with little side effects. Or is that just my cognitive bias dreaming of a better world

  • randomname@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    If screworms went extinct there wouldn’t be any animals starving… same with a lot of pests. guinea worm for example.