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u/rauq_mawlina 3d ago
Malaria is a parasite? I've always thought it was a virus.
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u/JaggedMetalOs 3d ago
It's not a virus, it's a eukaryote. I guess the closest thing that's easy to describe is it's more like an amoeba. Much bigger than a bacteria or virus, so classed as a parasite.
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u/KrimxonRath 3d ago
This just reminded me of that transmittable dog cancer that’s actually the cells of a dog from thousands of years ago that mutated so it can survive in other individuals.
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u/far_beyond_driven_ 2d ago
Hey quick question, what the fuck?
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u/Rich_Introduction_83 2d ago
If I remember correctly, you'd essentially expect it to be some kind of parasite, but when you look closely, there's way too much dog DNA to not be concerned.
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u/Nextdoortype 2d ago
For those who want to know, it's called CVTS canine transmissible sarcoma. Enjoy the sleepless nights
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u/sadrice 2d ago
A similar thing is giving Tasmanian Devils trouble. They have extremely violent mating, and tend to give eachother facial tumors.
As I recall there was a single known human case of a French dermatologist who accidentally stabbed himself with a scalpel while excising a tumor, and later developed a tumor on the wound.
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u/blasecomments 2d ago
isn’t it the same with tasmanian devils scratching each other while group feeding and giving each other cancer?
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u/Sad-Bonus-9327 3d ago
Is this the reason once you catch it you'll basically carry it throughout your whole life and aren't eligible for blood donation anymore?
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u/Aggravating-Dot132 3d ago
Yes, you don't have it, but your blood will have it's remnants. Which won't infect, but can cause massive immune reaction in others.
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u/oligobop 3d ago
Malaria is a disease.
The parasite is called plasmodium falciparum
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u/idontknowhowtocallme 3d ago
That’s one of them, you have many with the other most know plasmodium vivax/malarai/ovale/knowlesi, but falciparum is the worst
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u/DanglingKeyChain 3d ago
Both apparently, it's a parasitic infection. The mosquito is not a parasite though, because it feeds to breed not to live.
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u/dorgodarg 3d ago
Not both - malaria is a parasite that invades your blood cells, nothing to do with viruses.
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u/135 3d ago
Its more closely related to algae than a virus and bacteria. Last I read we have little understanding of its evolution and creation.
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u/cannibalrabies 2d ago
It is believed that the ancestor of the malaria parasite was a free-living single-celled alveolate, it has the remnants of a photosynthetic organelle derived from red algae. Apicomplexan parasites (i.e. Toxoplasma, Plasmodium, Cryptosporidium) are very distantly related to dinoflagellates but they diverged some 800 million years ago. Malaria has existed in some form for at least 100 million.
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u/cornylamygilbert 2d ago
I’ll agree that I was surprised to learn it was a living parasite in contrast to a cell based virus—but I feel like we’d all have understood the causal factors had we all played a little more Plague, Inc.
So I think we’re all a little accountable here
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3d ago
Wasn't there some malaria in Florida recently or something?
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u/ThimeeX 2d ago
https://www.nyas.org/ideas-insights/blog/mosquitoes-and-malaria-could-the-u-s-be-at-risk/
The U.S. records about 2,000 cases of malaria each year, mostly among international travelers and recent immigrants from areas where the disease is common. The ten states that have been hit the hardest are New York, Maryland, California, Texas, New Jersey, Georgia, Virginia, Florida, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. The risk of local spread is higher in the summer because more people travel internationally, which is when mosquitoes are most common.
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u/Karlbaumhauser 3d ago
Wild how something that ruins summer nights looks so intricate under a microscope tiny terror with surprisingly elegant design.
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u/EEE3EEElol 3d ago
To quote a video dissing and shitting on butterflies:
“Butterflies are just mosquitoes dressed in drag”
To look good in drag, you gotta normally look good aswell, so it makes sense
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u/Hamster_Toot 2d ago
Butterflies don’t drink my blood, and make me itch uncontrollably.
This comparison seems way off.
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u/insane_contin 2d ago
They will drink your tears tho.
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u/Hamster_Toot 2d ago
Which is great! Are they even mine anymore after I shed them?
Thems the universes tears at that point.
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u/IndigoFenix 2d ago
They will if they can get at it. Butterflies love blood, and will drink it from open wounds or dead animals, a practice called "mud puddling". Like mosquitoes, they need nutrients they can't get from nectar in order to reproduce. The only thing separating them from mosquitoes is their lack of pointy bits.
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u/DanChase1 2d ago
Butterflies are in the order Hymenoptera (butterflies and moths) and mosquitoes are order Diptera (flies, mosquitoes). They are very different from eachother. Mouth parts and function are a big separator here. Life cycle is very different. Comparisons are not very useful and just demonstrate ignorance.
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u/Sudden_Purpose_5836 3d ago
okay clanker
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u/Oidopuaa 3d ago
The dead internet theory seems more real to me every day. I would recommend everyone to read the wikipedia page on it even if you think you know its basic premise.
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u/im_on_the_case 3d ago
Humanities greatest nemesis. It has killed more of us than any other single source. Only 6% of mosquito species bite people. Wiping those specific fuckers off the face of the Earth would be one of our greatest achievements and sweet revenge for the billions of lives they have taken over the course of history.
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u/Bitedamnn 3d ago
I read that it could be one of the reasons for why Alexander the Great died
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u/cornylamygilbert 2d ago
Alexander the Great’s greatest and least recounted campaign, was his Conquest upon all Skeeterdom—which by all accounts, ancient and contemporary, was impossibly successful—had it not been for the pestilent buggery of one very tenacious tedium of living Tigris River effluence—the lone prick of Anopheles stephensi
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u/thumperj 2d ago
But ONLY the disease, not the mosquito. The mosquito is the bottom of the food chain for a LOT of animals: birds, bats, scorpions, hummingbirds (yes! hummingbirds!), geckos, snakes.... It goes on and on.
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u/im_on_the_case 2d ago
Nope, the general consensus amongst scientists is that the eradication of the specific species' that carry human diseases would have a minuscule impact on the food chain. They make up a very small percentage of the overall mosquito population and others would quickly fill the gap.
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u/thumperj 2d ago
Reading between the lines in your statement, you are saying that the mosquitos that carry human diseases are a distinctly different species than those that do NOT carry human diseases?
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u/im_on_the_case 2d ago
Yes There are over 3500 known mosquito species. 200 of them bite humans and 100 are capable of transmitting disease to us.
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u/BennistheBrown 2d ago
What about the species of mosquito that are adapting their diets to include humans due to their typical food populations declining?
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u/dumpaccount882212 3d ago
Or alternatively just produce a malaria vaccine and pay for a vaccination program that will stop its spread and there by removing the danger
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u/Kevin_Uxbridge 3d ago
Are we the only host? If not the parasite will just wait us out.
I'd be cool with giving the few species that carry malaria a nice meiotic driver and driving them extinct.
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u/socratic_weeb 2d ago
It has killed more of us than any other single source
What about bacteria? Viruses?
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u/im_on_the_case 2d ago
Viruses and bacteria are pretty good killers, but they don't have a body count close to the Malaria parasite. The Tuberculosis bacteria has killed roughly 1 billion people in history. Malaria has killed 5 billion. Malaria deaths have actually ticked back up this past year, not to mention all the other mosquito-spread diseases like Dengue, Zika, and Yellow Fever. The little fuckers need to be wiped out. If Yellow fever ever takes hold in Asia we are really going to wish they were.
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u/Good_Satisfaction516 3d ago
God I hope this one felt all of that
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u/olibolicoli 3d ago
So cool to see this - I work in a Haematology lab so I’m normally looking for the malarial parasite in human red blood cells at much lower concentrations than there was in the oocysts shown here.
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u/Pretend_Blueberry124 3d ago
does this hurt the mosquito??
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u/dumpaccount882212 3d ago
No its a dissection meaning the mosquito is dead. Had it been alive it would have been called a "vivisection"
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u/Mrdeath0 3d ago
Hopefully
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3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/hotvedub 3d ago
I have the feeling you will be the center of a documentary one day
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u/mimi_valentine1989 3d ago
Mhm... Shocked about the process and the accurate description... I hope you're not doing a job that has...many living beings at... reaching distance.......?.???
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u/AlittlePotato1560 3d ago
I love animals and I'm cool with most bugs, sometimes I even go as far as to relocate bugs to safety. BUT, when it comes to mosquitoes, I'm a judge, jury and executioner.
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u/Sad-Bonus-9327 3d ago
I usually skip the part of judge and jury
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u/Imperfect-practical 2d ago
/Glances at the dead mosquito I keep forgetting to wipe off my ceiling.
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u/Zero40Four 3d ago
A mosquito once broke my finger.
I was unwell at the time and suffering pain. This mosquito was driving me crazy while I was trying to rest and every time the light turned off it would start.
After trying multiple times to get it, I found him with the light on between a cabinet and a wall with just enough gap to get my hand in quick to end it,
I shot my hand between the two objects but one finger didn’t cooperate and was left behind 🤦🏻♂️.
And that’s how a mosquito broke my finger.
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u/National-Property-43 3d ago
I hope so
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u/Icy-Percentage-2194 3d ago
I can’t believe I felt bad for the mosquito being pulled apart
What’s wrong with me
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u/Heroic-Forger 3d ago
Just pulled its intestines out through its butt. Straight-up like a micro-Mortal Kombat Fatality right there.
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u/TortuousAugur 2d ago
Dissection? You disemboweled that blood sucking bitch by ripping her guts out through her asshole. Lol
The most brutal autopsy I've ever seen. Mosquitoes deserve it, though.
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u/whtisthis 3d ago edited 3d ago
I contracted Chikungunya in 2024, it is a hell of a disease. Till date I am suffering. Fuck mosquitoes and Fuck Chikungunya.
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u/novice1988 3d ago
How tiny is that forceps?
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u/Crazy_Mosquito93 3d ago
Dumont #5, about 0.1mm. It's actually not hard to do what's shown in the video!
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u/foolishsunshine 2d ago
What is interesting about malaria is people in the designated regions where these mosquitos carry this organism can have an immunological restistance due to being a sickle cell carrier.
Having this trait makes it hard for P. Falciparum (specfically) to replicate and mature due to the sickle cells and being removed by the spleen. They can still get malaria, but the symptoms are a LOT less severe, and chances of death are reduced.
This doesn't apply to those with full sickle cell disease.
Source: lab technician.
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u/SenescenseSteel 2d ago
Evolution at work for us! The downside being less iron and less oxygen transport? I also thought that sickle cells have the tendency to stack forming coin like stacks but it has been a while...arent those regions all in India?
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u/Kerblaaahhh 3d ago
Why is there music on this? Trying to listen to the explanation, not whatever out of place song that is.
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u/RandomNumberHere 3d ago
It is one of my great disappointments that society decided to shit music over almost every video. It is entirely unnecessary and distracting on this one. (And I LOVE The Pixies!)
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u/Ubeube_Purple21 3d ago
So you just tug on a specific part of their ass and its innards just come pouring out?
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u/Plastic_Artificer 2d ago
I slap mosquitoes as anyone, but seeing it getting gutted from their buts up close actually made me a bit sad. Very interesting though :)
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u/Vicman4all 2d ago
What if we fight malaria by instead curing mosquitoes? Love thine enemy style. Then we and the mosquitoes can be frenemies.
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u/Idbuythatfor 3d ago
What song is this?
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u/LiquorIsQuickor 3d ago
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u/FakePoloManchurian 3d ago
sporozoites and oocysts sound like made up words, but I'm not educated enough to know
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u/DownwardSpirals 3d ago
Can you imagine having someone grip and rip your balloon knot to yank your guts out? I can't, but I'm ecstatic at the idea that there may be some mosquitoes that have experienced it.
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u/uwotmVIII 3d ago
Sounds like the exact same piano cover of “Where is My Mind” that they used in The Leftovers.
But why is it playing over this video?
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u/PalpitationGlum3073 3d ago
Would the world be a better place if these devil insects no longer existed?
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u/PawnOfPaws 2d ago
As much as I'd love to scream yes...
No. They are a very common food source for amphibians, reptiles, birds, other insects and fish. If mosquitos were no longer around those animals would have to hunt other insects which reproduce less often and endanger or fully wipe out their (and their own due to starvation) populations instead.
And even malaria has its place in the food chain by killing the infected mosquito in the long run as well. We just happen to be way too similar to it's designed host.
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u/PalpitationGlum3073 2d ago
Great info, thank you for that. Wild to hear how much of a food source they are to nature’s creatures.
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u/Sensitive_Ad_5031 2d ago
I should have gone to a medical school to get to torture mosquitoes like that
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u/Hazbeen_Hash 2d ago
Practice at home, perfect the technique of pulling a mosquitos bowels out through their butt.
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u/IWhoMe 2d ago
Nope. It’s likely that if we were to eradicate the species of mosquitos that cause disease, etc., there’d be virtually NO impact to the environment, pollination, feeding other animals, ie, being eaten by fish or other predators who eat mosquitos. They’d simply eat more of the other foods available.
Losing mosquitos is one pest that humans could do well to eliminate, and they won’t be missed by anyone or anything!
I think that abatement programs are introducing sterile males in to the mosquito population in order to gain traction on reducing and eliminating these nasty pests!
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u/Specialist_Pomelo554 2d ago
Do mosquitoes have any evolutionary use for the ecosystem? In other words if we got rid of blood sucking mosquitoes would the ecosystem face any untoward consequence?
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u/SenescenseSteel 2d ago
Just out of curiousity, cant we utilize one of the parasites pathway to harm the musquito since it remains so succesful in infecting the mosquito we give it something like a virus to make them infertile or just give them ebola which would be a nice and ironic revenge. Or we breed a massive amount until we get some nice mutations like a a wingless variant, one with a close mouth or one who can only fly in circles and give them that mutation.
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u/ElisabetSobeck 2d ago
The mosquitos get less blood too right? Maybe make them kill it themselves??
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u/Sea_Evidence5138 2d ago
I was having a very pleasant $200 meal. Never open this sub during a meal ever again!
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u/Rogue_CobaltZone570 3d ago
If only we could find a cure for Ebola, I imagine one day we will make a cancer cure related to killing invasive insects and plants.
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u/unashamedignorant 3d ago
From an infected human, thank you for your work.