Which insect is the most feared insect on Earth?

The most feared insect on Earth is the one that transmits an infectious disease to a lot of humans.

There is an insect whose infected parasitic bite can cause fever, tiredness, vomiting, coma, and death in humans. The disease that the insect spreads occurs mostly in tropical and sub-tropical regions. In 2020, there were 241 million cases of the disease worldwide, resulting in an estimated 627,000 deaths.

The insect most feared on Earth is the Anopheles Mosquito because it spreads malaria.

The Anopheles Mosquito is a small insect in the Anopheles genus of mosquitoes. There are about 460 species of the Anopheles Mosquito and over 100 species can transmit human malaria. However, 5 species of the Anopheles Mosquito transmit the parasites in the Plasmodium genus that are the most dangerous to humans.

There are other mosquito genera (plural of genus), such as the Aedes Mosquito, Culex Mosquito, Culiseta Mosquito, Haemagogus Mosquito, and Ochlerotatus Mosquito that spread diseases, but not human malaria.

Human malaria is an Anopheles mosquito-borne infectious disease. A mosquito infected with the Plasmodium parasites bites a human, and the parasites in its saliva are introduced into the bitten person’s blood. The parasites travel in the blood to the liver where the parasites mature and breed. About 10-15 days later, the human has symptoms of the malaria, such as fever, headaches, and sickness. 

There are drugs to help prevent malaria, as well as the use of mosquito nets and insect repellent. Mosquitoes breed in stagnant (still) water, so these water sources should be drained and not situated near people. There is also a treatment for curing malaria.

Diagram – Life Cycle of the Malaria Parasite: National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), 2007, http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/malaria/pages/lifecycle.aspx. 

Photographer: Martina Nicolls

Martina Nicolls: SIMILAR BUT DIFFERENT IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM