I’m not disagreeing with you, but I think it’s a histamine response which is just directed at parasites in general.
Well the point is that people who had a bad reaction to mosquito bites tend to avoid getting them. Therefore they tend to live longer because they also happen to avoid the diseases, live longer and have more babies. They don’t need to understand anything.
The point is that the itching evolved because it could be beneficial for us. The bites are not unpleasant in themselves as you say. They are unpleasant because we evolved to feel them unpleasant. It is the same as sex being pleasant. It is that way because it is beneficial.
fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc 3 weeks ago
kamenoko@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Biting insects kill more people than any other animal group by miles, the reaction response is more or less the same in every mammal. Evolution doesn’t evolve to anything, that’s selective pressure.
This behavior predates humans as we know ourselves today.
JustZ@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I take issue with this obvious selection bias. Of course this is true when you’re pre-selecting for only the insects that bite people. If you were to preselect, only those sharks that have bitten people, so-called biting sharks, I think the shark been people have a higher average mortality than the insect bitten people. /s