🦟 Humans on the menu

Spare a thought for the humble mosquitoes of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. For centuries, the lush, untouched biome provided them with a diverse, all-you-can-eat buffet of primates, birds and amphibians to feast upon. But, with deforestation, biodiversity loss and rising temperatures, these pesky insects found themselves hooked on something new: human blood.

“It’s hard to say that mosquitoes have developed ‘a taste’ for us,” said virologist Sérgio Machado, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). “It’s more of a case of opportunity and convenience.” In other words, with forests disappearing, we have become the path of least resistance between mosquitoes and their dinner.

Machado, along with lead author Jerônimo Alencar and others, recently conducted a study into the dietary habits of mosquitoes in remaining Atlantic Forest clusters in Rio de Janeiro state. They collected 1,714 insects from 52 different mosquito species, and sought to analyze what they had been eating, by way of testing the blood found inside their digestive systems.

Expecting the insects to have ingested a varied range of food sources, the results — published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution earlier this month — were startling…

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