When an insect is an animal...

[o0Ampy0o]

I thought insects were insects.    I am a dumbshit about insects.

 

Washington Post headline:

In the U.S., the world’s deadliest animal is on the move

 

The article is speaking of mosquitos.

 

https://apple.news/AWVKJH6ZKREmvyLfusdKofg?articleList=AMlXFT4NJTiuBByjKjPIvCg,AXQ7_NJ_xSr2c_tEKXiJdFA,A6LDMqlyoQ8OKyJ_xeWLh4g_ajthsiA,APFBzx7WgSX2tr0omOblobQ,AWVKJH6ZKREmvyLfusdKofg,ABxW8_sYeSdubOkaMoGa8MA,A60ReFoJFSeShFuFNCU4sOA,AT-2LB7daRW-i-7JPftcm0Q,At0tqEkOxTXaMg7rKsQWHGw,ArLXodnvPQXyc9T4O1I9_kQ,AkhGR5crhT6eiG3d5BYfA8Q&campaign_id=E101&campaign_type=7e8f7a5a-cbbf-4b3a-a5ec-128ff6c0e084/default&creative_id=daily_v2_more_stories_entry_with_image-1-14:moreStoryWithImageEntry

[KenElevenShadows]

I'm trying to understand what you are taking issue with here.

 

 

Is it that the issue you have is that an insect is not an animal? Here's two websites, the Smithsonian and Activewild, that state an insect is an animal.

 

"Did you know that most animals on Earth are insects?"

https://naturalhistory.si.edu/education/teaching-resources/life-science/what-insect#:~:text=To get started%2C insects are,for over 400 million years.

 

"Insects are animals. Like all animals, insects are multicellular organisms that respire using oxygen, reproduce sexually, eat and move. Insects belong to the animal class Insecta, which, with around one million living species, is by far the biggest class within the animal kingdom. Insects make up at least two-thirds–and likely a much larger proportion–of all known living animal species."

https://www.activewild.com/are-insects-animals/

 

Or maybe it's that mosquitoes are not deadly?  These two articles - including the one you linked to - make a convincing case that it's not only the deadliest animal in the world, but that it looks to ramp up its killing tremendously. I've been to Ghana, The Amazon jungle, India, and other places that have issues with malaria, dengue ever, yellow fever, and so forth.

 

"The deadliest animal in the world is smaller than a pencil eraser and weighs around two-thousandths of a gram — less than the weight of a single raindrop. Every year, it kills an estimated 700,000 people by partaking in what scientists grimly call a “blood meal.”

 

It’s the mosquito — and, increasingly, it’s on the move.

 

These global shifts, which will only accelerate as the planet warms, have sparked concern that the diseases mosquitoes carry will exact an even higher toll in the months and years to come.

 

In June alone, five cases of locally transmitted malaria were discovered in Texas and Florida: the first cases acquired in the United States in two decades. These cases, experts say, are unlikely to have a connection to warming temperatures — conditions in Florida and Texas are already suitable for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. But as urban heat islands expand and temperatures rise, mosquito-borne diseases are expected to travel outside of their typical regions.

 

“Climate change allows the creeping edge of mosquito ranges to expand,” said Sadie Ryan, a professor of medical geography at the University of Florida.

 

Earlier this year, Georgetown University researchers published a paper in Biology Letters demonstrating that malaria mosquitoes’ ranges have already shifted in Africa over the past century, farther from the equator and into higher altitudes.

 

Malaria cases worldwide declined steadily for nearly two decades. But that progress stalled as cases have flatlined and even ticked up in some countries in the past few years. Cases increased to an estimated 247 million in 2021 from a recent low of 231 million in 2018, according to data from the World Health Organization."

 

 

~~~~~

This is from the CDC:

Fighting the World’s Deadliest Animal

"The meager, long-legged insect that annoys, bites, and leaves you with an itchy welt is not just a nuisance―it’s one of the world’s most deadly animals.  Spreading diseases such as malaria, dengue, West Nile, yellow fever, Zika, chikungunya, and lymphatic filariasis, the mosquito kills more people than any other creature in the world.

 

In 2018, the number of severe cases of West Nile virus was nearly 25% higher in the Continental U.S. than the average incidence from 2008 to 2017.

 

In the past 30 years, the worldwide incidence of dengue has risen 30-fold. Forty percent of the world’s population, about 3 billion people, live in areas with a risk of dengue. Dengue is often a leading cause of illness in areas of risk."

 

https://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/stories/2019/world-deadliest-animal.html

[o0Ampy0o]

I thought insects were insects.   I am a dumbshit about insects.

 

 

[Anderton]

All insects are animals, but not all animals are insects. Nor are all mosquitoes of legal drinking age, so in theory, they shouldn't be biting you.

[Notes_Norton]

There are plants, animals, fungi, protista, and monera.

 

 

It's pretty easy to tell the difference. If it's big enough to see and moves under its own power with legs, fins, wings, or whatever, it's probably an animal.

 

The 10 most dangerous animals in the world:

10. Elephants: 100 deaths per year. Elephants have the largest brains of the animal kingdom.

9. Hippopotamus: 500 deaths per year. The name “hippopotamus” is Greek for “river horse”.

8. Crocodiles: 1,000 deaths per year. Crocodiles are extremely territorial and will kill any intruder, including humans.

7. Tapeworms: 2,000 deaths per year. The most common way to pick up a tapeworm is through eating undercooked meat.

6. Roundworms: 2,500 deaths per year. Roundworms can reach 20 inches long.

5. Tsetse flies, Assassin Bugs, Freshwater Snails: 10,000 deaths per year each.

4. Dogs: 25,000 deaths per year. Rabid dogs account for a vast amount of these deaths.

3. Snakes: 50,000 deaths per year. The number of snake deaths may be higher because rural areas may not have adequate documentation.

2. Humans: 475,000 deaths per year. Over a 75-year lifespan, a person has a 1 in 200 chance of being murdered in America.

1. Mosquitoes: 725,000 deaths per year.

 

The mosquito kills more than the other nine in the top 10 combined. So if you are going to fear any animal at all, it should be the skeeter.

 

Only the female mosquito needs a blood meal. The males are vegans. Since the mosquito is the biggest killer of humans, and since only the females bite us, this solves the argument. The female is the deadliest of the genders.

 

I live in Florida, I'm a “mosquito magnet”, and we have plenty of them. If I'm in a convention center, and one mosquito gets in, it will probably find me. So for self-protection (and comfort)…

• I planted citronella grass clumps near the all the exterior doors of my house. This doesn't stop them, but reduces the numbers by over 90%.
• I dissolve vitamin B12 lozenges under my tongue. I heard this from a friend, tried it out, and they buzz, hover, and most won't land. My friend says to get the active, methylcobalamin form of the vitamin. The lozenges are cherry flavored.
• I don't wear dark-colored or red clothing at dawn or dusk.
• If needed, I spray “Life Stings” on exposed areas. It's a spray with catnip and mint ingredients, two smells mosquitos don't like. It seems to be as effective as the DEET sprays, it's probably safer, and it smells a lot better.
• I don't let standing water pool anywhere in my yard. No sense giving a place to breed nearby.

The result is – I get very few mosquito bites.

 

If going to the Everglades in the summer, I have a mosquito net suit that goes over my clothes. The brackish water mosquitoes are the worst, and they even ignore the DEET spray.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

 

[David Emm]

18 hours ago, Anderton said:

All insects are animals, but not all animals are insects. Nor are all mosquitoes of legal drinking age, so in theory, they shouldn't be biting you.

 

HAH! Oh Gawd, this is vulgar, but also too pertinent to resist.

 

Ron White once said "You know you've got a drinking problem when your dog eats your puke and gets hammered!" 😬

 

Down below the Monera, you'll come to the Express Lane to Hell, assigned to lawyers, televangelists, telemarketers & Karens. They'll demand to see the manager, but ooo, they won't like it at all.

[WadeMills]

Hello stupid musicians peoples!! I am a spammer who gets paid $0.0000001 every time I mention the ajvermintatorpesontrol.com web site! The title says "insects" so here I am!! This is very different from "insex" but I have a lot of links for that too! Please click many many many many many times so I can make MUCH MONEY!! I love musician peoples! Have a nice day!

[Jeff Leites]

Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral - A TV show from the 50's

 

 

[Stokely]

This reminds me of a really odd and hilarious thread on arstechnica (my "home forum" for a couple decades now).  Ars is a science and tech site, I should mention. One person said something along the lines of "birds are my favorite mammals".   Which of course brought a lot of puzzled replies, and everyone thought the person was joking.  Nope, that person really thought birds were a type of mammal   Ever since then, I occasionally randomly say "birds are mammals" to my kids and they think I'm nuts, nothing like an "in joke" where nobody but you is in on it

[Anderton]

I did a little "creative editing" on Wade Mills post, which is three posts above this one. He/she/it/they is clearly a spammer and I didn't like where his/her/its/their link went, so I changed it to something that - trust me on this - is a WHOLE lot more entertaining! You're welcome

[Notes_Norton]

Thanks, Craig!

 

That was much more entertaining.

 

 

[analogika]

On 7/18/2023 at 4:06 PM, Stokely said:

This reminds me of a really odd and hilarious thread on arstechnica (my "home forum" for a couple decades now).  Ars is a science and tech site, I should mention. One person said something along the lines of "birds are my favorite mammals".   Which of course brought a lot of puzzled replies, and everyone thought the person was joking.  Nope, that person really thought birds were a type of mammal   

 

One of my favourite recent internet trends is the assertion that, since mammals have hair and give milk, coconuts are obviously mammals. 

[techristian]

Ask Bill Gates about mosquitoes.

https://www.labiotech.eu/trends-news/gates-foundation-oxitec-malaria-mosquito/

Dan

[Notes_Norton]

There was a plan to genetically modified male mosquitoes in the Florida Keys. They were for an introduced breed of mosquito, not native to Florida, and any females they fertilized, had young that didn't survive. Some of the residents were trying to stop the release. I haven't followed it closely, so I don't know how that one ended. I think the company that supplied the makes was from the source you linked for us.

 

Interesting concept. Of course, if it were a sci-fi story, it would end up all wrong, and a brave scientist and his female scientist lover would end up saving the day.

 

 

Notes ♫