Which Insect Did You Choose to Exterminate? - Response Saturday #23

This last week, I asked you to determine the fates of spiders and mosquitoes via a strange apocalyptic computer log.

It makes more sense if you click the link and read the original post.

Since this seemed to be quite an engaging topic, lots of you responded!

So after peeling back the proposed compromises and other options, it seemed as though 66% of you wanted to see the end of all mosquitoes, while 33% of you wanted to kill all the spiders.

As for me, I'm definitely a 'kill all the mosquitoes' kind of guy. In fact, one of the reasons I'm such an ardent defender of spiders is because of their natural ability to keep down mosquito populations. I experienced first-hand proof of this last summer, when I was working with the sports camps attending BYU. One of my supervisors called in an exterminator to kill the spider population living in one of our building's basements, and in the aftermath, mosquito bite complaints went up by a ridiculous percentage.

As for the fallout, CougarMan hypothesized that if all the mosquitoes died, then all spiders would starve. While I will point out that spiders do eat other things besides mosquitoes, entomologist Grayson Brown agreed with this theory to a point. At the same time, according to Quora, removing all the spiders in the world would damage the ecology of the world to a greater extent.

Either way, it's probably good we don't have a 'kill all' button in an underground shelter. After all, God knows why these things exist, and if there weren't a reason for them, then He wouldn't have put them here.

Of course, it certainly is fun to think about, isn't it?