Mosquitoes May Have Been Feeding on emHomo erectu...

What’s Happening

Okay so Learn how mosquito DNA reveals when malaria-carrying species began targeting early hominins in Southeast Asia.

Nearly two million years ago, as early members of the genus Homo expanded into Southeast Asia’s tropical forests, they encountered a landscape teeming with primates, predators, and insects — including mosquitoes that may already have been evolving a preference for their blood. A new genetic study published in Scientific Reports estimates that this transition to feeding on humans occurred between 2. (let that sink in)

6 million years ago, overlapping with the arrival of early hominins such as Homo erectus in the region around 1.

The Details

That means this mosquito group began targeting humans more than a million years before similar preferences are thought to have evolved in major African malaria carriers. How Mosquitoes Evolved to Feed on Early Hominins Out of roughly 3,500 known mosquito species, only a small fraction strongly prefer feeding on humans.

But that preference is what makes certain species especially effective at spreading diseases like malaria. Mosquitoes that consistently seek out human hosts are far more likely to transmit pathogens between people.

Why This Matters

The species examined in the new study belong to the Anopheles leucosphyrus group, a cluster of Southeast Asian mosquitoes that includes known malaria spreaders. To understand how their host preference evolved, researchers sequenced DNA from 38 mosquitoes representing 11 species. These samples were collected across Southeast Asia between 1992 and 2020.

Scientists and researchers are watching this development closely.

Key Takeaways

• Using genetic data, mutation-rate estimates, and computer modeling, the team reconstructed the group’s evolutionary history.
• Before that transition, the mosquitoes ’ ancestors primarily fed on non-human primates, which were abundant across the region’s tropical forests.

The Bottom Line

Their analysis suggests that the shift toward feeding on humans happened once within this group in Sundaland — a prehistoric landmass that once connected parts of today’s Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra, and Java during periods of lower sea levels. Before that transition, the mosquitoes ’ ancestors primarily fed on non-human primates, which were abundant across the region’s tropical forests.

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