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Mosquitoes developed their “anthropophilia” and changed the main dish on their menu around 1.8 million years ago. There was plenty of A man standing…
Mosquitoes are the planet’s health. They kill hundreds of thousands of people every year through the transmission of malaria, dengue, chikungunyaand a host of other fatal diseases.
Understanding how these ubiquitous insects first developed appetite for human blood It has long intrigued scientists, and could help us better combat the spread of mosquito-borne diseases.
Now, a new study suggests that some mosquitoes’ thirst for human blood could be truly primordialdating back to about 1.8 million years ago — a time when our human ancestor, the The man stood upmay have been in full expansion.
No , published this Thursday in the magazine Scientific Reportsan international team of researchers analyzed the DNA from 40 mosquitoes belonging to 11 species of the group Anopheles leucosphyrusfound in Southeast Asia.
What makes this group of mosquito species so especial is the fact that some of them express a strong preference for human bloodwhile others feed mainly on other primates, such as monkeys, gibbons and orangutans, explains Upasana Shyamsunder Singhpostdoctoral researcher at Vanderbilt University and lead author of the study, cited by .
The team calculated that mosquitoes had developed their “antropofilia” — the taste for human blood — in a period between 2.9 and 1.6 million years ago. This interval coincides with the period in which some scientists believe that the H. erectusa primitive hominid, arrived in the region.
“A transition to food at the expense of humans it is much older than we expected and, therefore, could not have occurred in response to the arrival of anatomically modern humans”, says Catherine Walton, co-author of the study and professor of science at Terran University of Manchester, in England.
In order for mosquitoes to have transitioned from other primates to hominids, ancestral humans such as H. erectus“not only would they have to be present in this place and at this time, but would have to be abundant“, he emphasizes.
The results are not just relevant to researchers studying human evolution; also constitute a important sign for epidemiologists seeking to understand mosquito-borne diseases.
These insects continue to evolve ,and humans are increasingly encroaching on wild areas—which means more mosquitoes could continue to swarm. adapt, starting to prefer to feed on us to the detriment of other animals.
“We are effectively creating new selective pressuresand we must hope that the mosquitoes answer this“, concludes Walton.
