As this linked article proclaims, in the wake of the Zika virus, which has been linked to serious birth defects like microcephaly (babies being born with abnormally small heads, thus abnormally small brains) and follows the already existent scourges of malaria, Dengue and West Nile virus, some people are calling for the eradication of all mosquitoes. This must not be done! Not because mosquitoes serve any positive purpose. They don’t—except for one. They feed bats. Mosquitoes are the staple crop of bats the world over, excepting our dear little furry friend the vampire bat and the oversized “flying foxes,” aka fruit bats. Most bats eat skeeters, though, in geographic areas where skeeters are indigenous. Some scientists insist that other insects would replace the mosquito as the bat’s buffet of choice. Others warn that, as nature abhors a vacuum, the insect that replaces the skeeter might be even more of a problem for us humans.
More troubling is what we can term the “House of Cards” theory. That nature is like an elaborate tabletop card construction. You might take away a card and nothing happens. Even take away several cards and see no visible result. But if you take the right card—or the wrong card, more accurately—it all comes falling down. Since human beings are cards at the top of that structure, we’d have the farthest to fall. Geronimo!