Why does nature produce so many blood-sucking insects?
Think simply about mosquitoes, midges, flies… why do these blood-sucking creatures appear, what is their significance? From many perspectives, it seems that most of these blood-sucking creatures transmit diseases and harm many other animals.
The evolution of blood-sucking insects began in the early Triassic-Jurassic period. At that time, groups of flies and mosquitoes began to flourish. During the Triassic, mosquitoes began to evolve into the subfamily house mosquitoes and the subfamily Anopheles, and during the Jurassic, Anopheles and Aedes mosquitoes diverged. In addition, blood-sucking bedbugs also evolved during this time.
There are two main hypotheses about the evolution of blood-sucking insects: the herbivorous hypothesis and the skin-eating hypothesis.
Almost all of us have been bitten by mosquitoes at some point in our lives. They cause itching, discomfort, skin irritation and, most dangerously, infectious diseases that can quickly cause death.
The herbivorous hypothesis corresponds to mosquitoes. Mosquitoes were originally herbivorous, but starting in the Jurassic period, with the emergence and evolution of angiosperms, a terrestrial revolution began, and warm-blooded mammals, dinosaurs, and birds appeared. Some species of mosquitoes, after accidentally receiving blood nourishment, began to switch to bloodsucking.
It is generally accepted that arthropod blood parasites increased at least sixfold during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. They feed on blood through their sucking mouthparts, which were originally developed for sucking plant sap; these needle-like jaws are also a useful tool for mosquitoes to adapt to feeding on blood.
Mosquito bites kill about 1 million people worldwide each year. That's more people than live in major cities like Detroit or Geneva. Many survivors are left with serious disabilities that last a lifetime.
During the Mesozoic, insects began to approach vertebrates, possibly because they ate fruits and young leaves of plants at the same time as these species, or insects were attracted to fruits and seeds contained in vertebrate nests.
This allowed the insect to accidentally come into contact with and feed on the blood flowing from the wound, which then evolved to deliberately open the wound; over time, the insect's mouthparts continued to evolve, allowing the insect to remove the scab from the wound, opening up the old wound and resulting in the ability to pierce the skin and make it more difficult for these wounds to clot.
It is clear that vertebrate blood has higher nutritional value and is more easily digested than plant sap, as evidenced by the fact that blood-sucking Aedes mosquitoes are more likely to develop and reproduce than sap-sucking mosquitoes .
Mosquitoes are the most dangerous insects in the world. A single mosquito can infect more than 100 different victims.
The transition from sap-feeding to blood-feeding has persisted into modern times. A prime example is the Spodoptera moth , a member of the Noctuididae family with a modified sharp beak. While most nocturnal species use this beak to pierce the outer skin of fruits, Spodoptera moths use it to pierce the skin of vertebrates to feed on blood.
Spodoptera moths are about 20-25mm long and have a wingspan of 35-45mm. They can live for an average of 1-2 weeks depending on their diet. On average, a female moth can lay 300 eggs, but under suitable conditions, they can lay 900-2000 eggs.
The epiphagous hypothesis corresponds to other insects that lack specialized sucking organs. These insects cannot feed directly on blood but have evolved into indirect bloodsucking insects through long-term coexistence with vertebrates.
Vertebrate nests are attractive to insects probably because the warm, moist environment is beneficial to the vast majority of insects. Furthermore, the abundance of food in vertebrate nests may also be the reason why they attract insects.
Psocoptera is an order of insects, They first appeared in the Permian period about 295–248 million years ago. They are considered the most primitive of the paraneoptera. Their name comes from the Greek ψῶχος, psokos meaning gnawed or rubbed and πτερά, ptera meaning wing.
Initially, insects fed on dung, fungi, and accidentally ingested organic debris such as skin scraps or worms in the nest. Over time, this led to the development of the ability to digest organic debris and also to feed directly from the host body.
Morphological and behavioral adaptations also allowed insects to develop specialized mouthparts. Although these muscles are not used as a mosquito's sucking mouthparts, they can be used to penetrate the dermis to feed on the blood of the host. The evolution from skin-feeding to blood-sucking was first observed in members of the suborder Poultry lice.
Bed bugs live entirely on blood, especially the species Cimex lectularius (common bed bug), which is the most famous, because it prefers to feed on human blood.
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