Holy fuck.

[conuly]

Silly bedbugs. Evolution is for everybody but you!

Comments

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

I'm horrified but strangely impressed.

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

I wish I hadn't clicked. That picture was gross! ;-)

[lady-angelina.livejournal.com]

Scary. X_x

But really... just what ecological use are these creatures?! I can only see maybe a marginal use for fleas, as one part of their life cycle feeds on a tiny bit of organic material and thus helps recycle it. But what good are bed bugs? What purpose do they serve?

[conuly]

That's an odd question to ask. You might as easily ask what the ecological use of humans is.

[lady-angelina.livejournal.com]

Heheh! Oh, I have actually wondered that, too, believe me. ;)

Because I come from a Biology background when I was in college, I try to see what people consider as "pests" open-mindedly, trying to explain what good they actually provide. Though grossly unappealing to most folks, rats and roaches, for instance, are scavengers that help make use of food waste. Also, while I'm deathly afraid of spiders, I have to remind myself that they feed on even less desirable insects.

But bed bugs? While they feed on warm blood, they can't actually kill us per se (thus removing us from the environment)... outside of individual medical concerns such as allergies, etc., the most harm I can see to humans is in driving us batshit. X_x

By the way, I don't mean that I want them to do any harm to us at all. Frankly, if it were up to me, they wouldn't even exist at all. What I'm wondering is, why do they even exist? XP

[conuly]

Oh, believe me, I'd get rid of bedbugs entirely if I could, I just recognize that the bedbug point of view (they're such nasty little critters I wouldn't be surprised if they *were* intelligent!) may be different :)

As for why they exist, I don't think that way. I figure they exist because it's an easily exploitable niche that nobody else had taken.

At any rate, totally taking away parasites isn't a good thing simply because most animals have evolved to live with parasites. There's some evidence that lack of (mostly benignish) parasites increases the odds of autoimmune disorders because our immune systems don't know what to do without something to fight, and many animals, of course, use "getting rid of parasites" as a social bonding thing.

http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2021&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

I'm horrified but strangely impressed.

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

I wish I hadn't clicked. That picture was gross! ;-)

[lady-angelina.livejournal.com]

Scary. X_x

But really... just what ecological use are these creatures?! I can only see maybe a marginal use for fleas, as one part of their life cycle feeds on a tiny bit of organic material and thus helps recycle it. But what good are bed bugs? What purpose do they serve?

[conuly]

That's an odd question to ask. You might as easily ask what the ecological use of humans is.

[lady-angelina.livejournal.com]

Heheh! Oh, I have actually wondered that, too, believe me. ;)

Because I come from a Biology background when I was in college, I try to see what people consider as "pests" open-mindedly, trying to explain what good they actually provide. Though grossly unappealing to most folks, rats and roaches, for instance, are scavengers that help make use of food waste. Also, while I'm deathly afraid of spiders, I have to remind myself that they feed on even less desirable insects.

But bed bugs? While they feed on warm blood, they can't actually kill us per se (thus removing us from the environment)... outside of individual medical concerns such as allergies, etc., the most harm I can see to humans is in driving us batshit. X_x

By the way, I don't mean that I want them to do any harm to us at all. Frankly, if it were up to me, they wouldn't even exist at all. What I'm wondering is, why do they even exist? XP

[conuly]

Oh, believe me, I'd get rid of bedbugs entirely if I could, I just recognize that the bedbug point of view (they're such nasty little critters I wouldn't be surprised if they *were* intelligent!) may be different :)

As for why they exist, I don't think that way. I figure they exist because it's an easily exploitable niche that nobody else had taken.

At any rate, totally taking away parasites isn't a good thing simply because most animals have evolved to live with parasites. There's some evidence that lack of (mostly benignish) parasites increases the odds of autoimmune disorders because our immune systems don't know what to do without something to fight, and many animals, of course, use "getting rid of parasites" as a social bonding thing.

http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2021&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0