Articles
Mosquitoes Compilation
In 2022, due to the fact of the large number of articles that bug evolutionism, I began putting multiple articles into loose categories. This one is MOSQUITOES.
THE POINT HAS BEEN POWERFULLY PROVED: EVOLUTION IS A LIE!
(NO NEW ITEMS WILL BE ADDED AFTER JUNE 2, 2022.)
1. Why Did God Make Mosquitos?
2. Why Mosquitoes Attack: Mystery Solved
3. Do We See Complex Design in Mosquito Eggs?
Why Did God Make Mosquitos?
By Brian Thomas, Ph.D. September 30, 2019
My wife and I enjoy evening walks with our dog when the Texas weather lets us. Unfortunately, mosquitos seem to like good weather too. And they recognize my wife is much sweeter than I am. She often asks, while swatting at them, why God made mosquitos. Usually the question is just a way to express her frustration over getting bit. She has my sympathy. My attempts to explain go something like this.
The first mosquitos God made didn’t seek to suck blood. Nor did He make their piercing-sucking mouthparts to transmit deadly diseases like yellow fever or malaria. We know this from Genesis 1:31: “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.” Ask my wife if she thinks mosquito bites are good and she’ll give you a side-eye glance. Say that they are very good and she may suggest you take a drug test. Mosquitos annoy, but the diseases they transmit can kill. So, something happened to turn those originally “very good” insects into the flying mini-vampires that terrorize us today.
The apostle Paul wrote, “We know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now,” 1 and mosquitos are part of this whole creation. You could ask my wife about birth pangs. She delivered five babies with no anesthesia. One penalty of sin was pain in childbirth, according to Genesis 3 . God told Eve, “In pain you shall bring forth children.” 2 Paul likens the groans, labors, and pangs throughout the whole world to a mother’s birth pangs.
Those labors feel miserable, but they bring forth new life and new joy. Birth pangs wrack mothers’ whole bodies, but each one signals something better lies ahead. The momentary groans in this life point to an everlasting world God has promised He will remake. “‘For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before Me,’ says the LORD, ‘So shall your descendants and your name remain.’” 3 God allowed mosquitos to fall from perfection—like so many other current pests, poisons, parasites, and problems—so they would remind us that this well-crafted but breaking-down “creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.” 4 This present cursed world is not the ultimate home for Christ-followers. We should invest elsewhere.
So, what purpose did mosquitos serve before they started misbehaving after the Genesis 3 curse? Nobody knows for sure since we can’t go back to Eden and find out. But many mosquito species use their unique mouthparts to take nectar from flowers or fruit. Of the 3,500 or so named mosquito species, only a few hundred harangue humans. Perhaps all of them took nectar meals in the beginning.
Even in today’s disease-wracked creation, mosquitos supply a link in many food chains. Their aquatic larvae filter and clean cloudy water. Their wiggly bodies feed fish, tadpoles, and dragonfly nymphs. Birds, bats, and spiders eat the adults. Plus, the majority of the species that dine on nectar also pollinates plants.
Rest assured, one day “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” 5 So, the next time a pesky mosquito pierces your pelt, let it remind you that “both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” 6 to make way for a new earth without misbehaving mosquitos. If God makes mosquitos for the new earth, they will only remind believers of the Lord’s genius. Any mosquitos in that day will give us cause to praise during pleasant evening walks.
References
1. Romans 8:22
2. Genesis 3:16
3. Isaiah 66:22
4. Romans 8:19
5. Isaiah 11:9
6. 2 Peter 3:10
https://www.icr.org/article/why-did-god-make-mosquitos
Also see: Dragonfly's Demise
Why Mosquitoes Attack: Mystery Solved
BY SCOTT ARLEDGE September 30, 2020
It’s late evening. You’re relaxing on the backyard deck when suddenly they find you. Mosquitoes! One way they locate you is by tracking the carbon dioxide (CO2) in your breath. Does this ability prove that mosquitoes were uniquely designed to use CO2 to guide their way to a blood meal? Why else would they have this ability if not for parasitic purposes? Recent studies reveal there appears to be a good reason mosquitoes were equipped from the very beginning of creation to detect CO2.
CO2 from Flowers
Interestingly, many insects—not just mosquitoes—possess the ability to sense CO2.1-3 Why would insects that aren’t seeking a blood meal have this ability? The answer remained elusive until new research revealed that flowers hold the key.4-6 Nectar-feeding moths, scientifically named Manduca sexta, prefer the Datura wrightii flower found in southwestern United States. This particular flower opens at dusk and withers by the following day. The researchers discovered that a substantial amount of CO2 is released as the flower opens. The metabolic process of nectar production generates more than enough CO2 for the moth to detect. The gas emission leads the moth to a very rewarding sugary meal, and the moth pollinates the flower—it’s a win-win relationship. Less gas is released as production subsides, and the moth may use this as a cue to spend more time and energy on fresh flowers.4,7,8
Galaxy hybrid magnolia flowers
Experiments were conducted with two surrogate flowers made of white cotton paper that emitted different levels of CO2 with no additional reward. One emitted background levels of CO2, and the other emitted higher levels consistent with an opening flower. Ninety-five percent of the test moths went to the flower with the higher level of CO2.4
Heat Seekers
In addition to using CO2, mosquitoes also draw on your body heat to track down you and your nutritious blood. They can sense your elevated thermal energy against a background ambient temperature with ease. However, this isn’t unique to blood-feeding insects. Many insects that don’t feed on blood can detect heat—and flowers offer up another surprise. Floral thermogenesis describes the ability of plants to significantly raise flower temperature to increase plant-pollinator success rates.5,6 Some plants can even increase flower temperature up to a spectacular 54°F above the surrounding air temperature!9 The Magnolia sprengeri flower was recently found to put out enough heat to attract pollinators, increase fragrance volatility, and reward pollinator beetles with overnight heat.5,9,10
What’s This Got to Do with Mosquitoes?
To answer that, we first need to confirm that mosquitoes feed on nectar. Absolutely they do. Nectar is a primary food source in a mosquito diet. They also love rotting fruit and honeydew. But do they use their CO2 and heat-seeking abilities to track down their plant-based food sources?
A 2019 study published in Nature evaluated that very question. The study authors concluded with a resounding “yes.” Tansy flowers from Europe and Asia were used in both the field and lab to study the behavior of foraging mosquitoes. The ambient concentration of CO2 around the tansy flower significantly increases at dusk. This, of course, coincides with the mosquitoes’ evening feeding activity. The researchers then established that mosquitoes were using CO2 as a cue to feed on nectar, just like the Manduca moths do.11
Mosquitoes also use other floral cues to feed on nectar. Flowers look beautiful to humans, but the visual stimuli from the flower also motivates the mosquitoes’ food-seeking behavior.12,13 Just seeing a colorful flower can attract a hungry mosquito. Specific chemicals present on the plant and in nectar also engage the mosquitoes’ drive to locate floral resources.14 Remarkably, human skin and breath emit 9 of the 20 chemicals that mosquito-friendly flowers present.15
Common Tools
The abilities of insects to seek CO2, heat, and various chemical compounds aren’t traits specifically designed by God for blood-sucking parasites but rather are common tools found throughout the insect world. If insects in general have the ability to feed on flowers, then the mosquito probably has them for the same reason. Therefore, in the beginning when everything was good and all creatures were vegetarian (Genesis 1:29-30), mosquitoes already had the same tools they possess today. The curse didn’t somehow add these powerful capabilities sometime afterward. This also means mosquitoes didn’t evolve their tools. Like the large, sharp teeth God originally put into animal mouths for eating vegetation, new and destructive uses for good animal traits like CO2 sensors developed after sin. In other words, new body parts didn’t arise after the curse—only their usage changed.
Extinction Helps Explain Why
Mosquito feasts on human blood
Why then do mosquitoes use these tools to feed on blood in this fallen world? Extinction may hold a clue. An unknown multitude of plant kinds have gone extinct for many different reasons. The simple explanation is that the diet required for a mosquito to lay eggs is different from most insects’ diets in order to get the proper nutrition during the larval stage. Today, plants on Earth don’t offer easy access to the complete range of nutrients mosquitoes need to thrive. Extinct plants—those that grew before the Flood, for example—could have had flowers that produced heat, CO2, volatile odors, and a nectar with all the proper nutrients for mosquito health.
Nectar found today consists of much more than just sugar. It’s packed with amino acids and many other micronutrients.16 Before the Flood, nectar with the appropriate nutrients could have been sealed away in a plant’s chamber that mosquito mouthparts could have pierced. After all, many plants today employ various mechanisms to ensure that only the planned bug species access their nectar. Some even use deadly toxins that are harmless only to the intended pollinators.17
When mosquitoes suffer from dehydration, they become very aggressive. It may seem counterintuitive, but some mosquito-borne diseases actually spread more readily during times of drought.18 As dehydration hits, a marked increase in blood-feeding occurs because mosquitoes become desperate. Mosquitoes are also pliable as to what they eat.18,19 Eventually, they detected and learned that the nutrients they need are in your blood. Basically, you are a walking, CO2-emitting, chemically volatile, heat-signature-possessing “flower” with the right food.
Conclusion
The authors of the Nature study reached the same conclusion, stating that “haematophagy [blood-eating] of mosquitoes may have arisen from phytophagy [plant-eating].”11 Essentially, they are saying that mosquitoes originally had all of these tools to feed exclusively on flowers and not blood. From their evolutionary perspective, somewhere along a path of millions of years mosquitoes began to feed on blood by employing the tools they had already been using on flowers.20
Why does a lion eat a gazelle? The lion is simply using the tools it already had to live. So, when you see a mosquito on the backyard deck, realize it’s starving and just trying to survive with tools that it was created with—originally for a harmless purpose—from the very beginning.
References
1. Stange, G. 1996. Sensory and Behavioral Responses of Terrestrial Invertebrates to Biogenic Carbon Dioxide Gradients. In Advances in Bioclimatology, vol. 4. Stanhill, G., ed. Berlin: Springer, 223-253.
2. Stange, G. and S. Stowe. 1999. Carbon-dioxide sensing structures in terrestrial arthropods. Microscopy Research & Technique. 47 (6): 416-427.
3. van Breugel, F., A. Huda, and M. H. Dickinson. 2018. Distinct activity-gated pathways mediate attraction and aversion to CO2 in Drosophila. Nature. 564 (7736 ): 420-424.
4. Thom, C. et al. 2004. Floral CO2 Reveals Flower Profitability to Moths. Journal of Chemical Ecology. 30 (6): 1285-1288.
5. Wang, R. and Z. Zhang. 2015. Floral thermogenesis: An adaptive strategy of pollination biology in Magnoliaceae. Communicative & Integrative Biology. 8 (1): e992746.
6. Stankunas, E. Plants that generate heat. Technology Org. Posted on Technology.org July 24, 2014, accessed August 2, 2020.
7. Guerenstein, P. G. et al. 2004. Floral CO2 emission may indicate food abundance to nectar-feeding moths. Naturwissenschaften. 91: 329-333.
8. Goyret, J., P. M. Markwell, and R. A. Raguso. 2008. Context- and scale-dependent effects of floral CO2 on nectar foraging by Manduca sexta. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 105 (12): 4565-4570.
9. Kikukatsu, I. et al. 2004. Temperature-triggered periodical thermogenic oscillations in skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus). Plant and Cell Physiology. 45 (3): 257-264.
10. Watling, J. R. et al. 2008. Mechanisms of thermoregulation in plants. Plant Signaling & Behavior. 3 (8): 595–597.
11. Peach, D. A. H. et al. 2019. Multimodal floral cues guide mosquitoes to tansy inflorescences. Scientific Reports. 9 (1): 3908.
12. Grimstad, P. R. and G. R. DeFoliart. 1974. Nectar Sources of Wisconsin Mosquitoes. Journal Medical Entomology. 11 (3): 331-341.
13. Andersson, H. and T. G. Jaenson. 1987. Nectar feeding by mosquitoes in Sweden, with special reference to Culex pipiens and Cx torrentium. Medical Veterinary Entomology. 1 (1): 59-64.
14. Nyasembe, V. O. and B. Torto. 2014. Volatile phytochemicals as mosquito semiochemicals. Phytochemistry Letters. 8: 196-201.
15. Nikbakhtzadeh, M. R. et al. 2014. Olfactory Basis of Floral Preference of the Malaria Vector Anopheles gambiae (Diptera: Culicidae) Among Common African Plants. Journal of Vector Ecology. 39: 372-383.
16. Clay, C. et al. 2006. A novel role for proline in plant floral nectars. Naturwissenschaften. 93: 72-79.
17. Stevenson, P. C. 2020. For antagonists and mutualists: the paradox of insect toxic secondary metabolites in nectar and pollen. Phytochemistry Reviews. 19: 603-614.
18. Hagan, R. W. et al. 2018. Dehydration prompts increased activity and blood feeding by mosquitoes. Scientific Reports. 8: 6804.
19. Vinauger, C. et al. 2018. Modulation of Host Learning in Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes. Current Biology. 28: 333-344.
20. A blood-engorged fossil mosquito from Flood rocks shows that the switch likely occurred before the Flood. See Thomas, B. Bloody Mosquito Fossil Supports Recent Creation. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org October 25, 2013, accessed July 24, 2020.
https://www.icr.org/article/why-mosquitoes-attack-mystery-solved/
Also see “ The Dragonfly's Demise”.
Do We See Complex Design in Mosquito Eggs?
By Scott Arledge February 26, 2021
Mosquitoes hatch from tiny eggs and spend a few days filter-feeding on things like bacteria, pollen, and algae. They molt three times as they grow, storing up the energy reserves needed to pupate in a manner similar to a butterfly. Their “chrysalis” has a shrimp-like tail that enables them to swim while they morph into a flying insect.
A couple days later they emerge from the pupae shell and the whole process starts over. Complex? Yes. So, let’s take a look at just the egg. It’s not a simple shell. What we find is an exquisitely designed life-preserving environmental interface system.
An Aedes aegypti mosquito lays eggs right above the waterline on a moist surface. The embryo can survive in the egg an astounding five years while it waits for the right conditions.1 How does the embryo survive harsh environments and hatch only when conditions are ideal? It’s due to the brilliant design of the mosquito egg.
The egg shell isn’t a single layer but actually four (Figure 1). The outer two layers—exochorion, endochorion, and the air gap they create—keep the embryo from running out of oxygen even if the egg is completely submerged. The outer layer, exochorion, is a hydrofuge—it sheds water like a duck’s back.
It’s also covered with a beautiful micropattern of bumps called tubercles (Figure 2). These tubercles increase the surface area of the exochorion exposed to the surrounding water and act as a gill, enabling the egg to “breathe” by gas exchange from dissolved gases present in the water.2 These bumps also resist biofouling (clogging) because of their special hexagonal micropattern. This has inspired the design of new technology to utilize this ingenious effect, a process known as bioinspiration.
The egg first starts out with only the outer two layers. The embryo inside waits for some important processes to finish and then excretes a jelly-like serosa membrane that completely surrounds the embryo.3 This membrane then secretes a cuticle containing chitin that allows just the right amount of water to leave the egg while retaining moisture inside. The egg shell also has a brown pigment called melanin. It’s still a mystery how the melanin—also found in human skin—reduces water leaving the egg, but these two features masterfully work together so the embryo doesn’t dry up and die.
The embryo doesn’t simply mature and then hatch. It waits for just the right condition—namely, low levels of oxygen in the water. This is important for the diet of a newly hatched mosquito, which consists of bacteria and algae. The presence of both these micronutrients drastically reduces the oxygen level in water. When there are sufficient levels of this food, as indicated by low oxygen, the mosquito hatches and consumes the bacteria and algae. This is especially beneficial for other aquatic life that needs oxygen to survive.
Things seem complicated as we observe creation all around us, but if we take the time to zoom in on the details, we find even more mind-boggling complexity. This explanation of the mosquito egg is a very simplified version, but it nonetheless demonstrates the great artistry and engineering of our Creator and Savior, Jesus—the same One who created us and provides us the path to salvation.
References
Mayilsamy, M. 2019. Extremely Long Viability of Aedes aegypti (Diptera: Culicidae) Eggs Stored Under Normal Room Condition. Journal of Medical Entomology. 56 (3): 878-880.
Kim, H. et al. 2020. Structural characterization of the micropatterned egg plastron in the mosquito, Aedes albopictus. Entomological Research. 50 (4): 189-198.
Rezende, G. L. et al. 2008. Embryonic desiccation resistance in Aedes aegypti : presumptive role of the chitinized Serosal Cuticle. BMC Developmental Biology. 8 (1): 82.
https://www.icr.org/article/do-we-see-complex-design-in-mosquito-eggs/
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