A few weeks back, my girlfriend and I were unpacking after a camping trip, when I noticed red welts her shoulders. I’d been mildly aware of mosquitoes, but I’d brushed off her complaints as exaggeration. Now I saw the results. This reminded me that with summer here, we have mosquitoes to look forward to.

Mosquitos aren’t welcome in most circles. At best they leave us uncomfortable. At worst one bite from the wrong species with a belly full of nasty will transmit Dengue Fever, West Nile, or Zika Virus. Luckily, here in Seattle and on Capitol Hill, we live with low mosquito diversity and being in the city, it’s largely mosquito free.

However, mosquitoes don’t need much. When we leave rain water collected in, say, an upturned garbage can lid, and the weather is right, these insects can multiply like crazy. A female may lay between 100 to 200 eggs in a minimal amount of water, which can grow into adults, depending on the species and conditions, in as little as 5 days. Only the female mosquito wants to sip your blood because she uses it to develop eggs. Most species’ males are vegetarian, focusing their efforts on flower nectar or other plant matter.

There are around 3,500 named species of mosquitoes with more we’ve not yet described. Of that number, less than 200 are known to bite or bother humans (around 5%), the rest focus on other species or forgo completely. According to the Washington Department of Health, about 30 species of mosquitoes have been recorded in King County; only 22 are listed by the CDC as species found carrying diseases like West Nile Virus. The dreaded Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, both known for carrying a bevy of scary diseases are not found here. One species that has been known to carry malaria has been found here, but that doesn’t mean it was infected (so don’t lose your s*#$).

I’m not an epidemiologist, nor an entomologist, but I do study the collision between humans and other species. If someone asked me, “Should we get rid of all the mosquitoes in the world?” My answer would be no. I don’t actually think we could ever eradicate mosquitoes entirely, but people shouldn’t try. Such behavior: trying to rid the world of an entire family of insects, is pure arrogance. However, I’d happily rid the world of malaria.

In doing some research, I found a long piece from a highly respected scientific journal suggesting that we could take mosquitoes away and things would probably be fine. The piece was surely playing devil’s advocate to a degree, but it went about refuting (unconvincingly) commonly held notions about the worth of mosquitoes. I was a little flabbergasted at this nonchalance. Have we unearthed every hidden story of every species of mosquito? No, of course we haven’t. Will we miss them when they’re gone, discovering they played a vital role in an ecosystem? Hard to say, but I’m not willing to take the chance. Ironically, many of the diseases mosquitoes transmit to humans rear their heads when we disturb habitats and alter climate, at the same time decreasing biodiversity. I’ll give you the two Aedes and the genus Anopheles, many of which carry malaria. The rest, we’ll have to think about.

You may still believe mosquitoes serve no ecological purpose. Some of the most diverse and biologically exciting places I’ve ever been have been down right swarming with the bloodsuckers. They’re food for birds, bats, and other insectivorous animals as adults. They’re food for other invertebrates, fish, and amphibians as eggs, larvae, and pupae. They’re pollinators, maybe not of our food crops, but of other flowers, and I can’t imagine we need less of this.

I don’t wish horrible disease on anyone and I don’t find comfort in itchy bites. I’m the first to admit that I tried to jump from a moving vehicle, when, as a child, I discovered I was covered in ticks and so was my dog, leaning lovingly onto me. I’ve convulsed in horror when I discovered terrestrial leeches engorged beneath my socks. Despite this, I don’t think we should get to decide which species come, and which go.

So, by all means, use some repellent and squish some hungry mosquitoes this summer. You’ll make no marked impact on their population, and if you’re in Seattle, you have little to fear from a bite. I challenge you to remember, when you kill mosquitoes, that the males are off pollinating and that the ladies just want enough blood to lay eggs. They’re not evil, they’re just insects.