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Mosquitoes evolved to prefer human blood. The shift could reveal when and where early humans lived
Genetic data show mosquitoes shifted to human blood between 2.9 million and 1.6 million years ago, indicating early hominin presence in Southeast Asia's Sundaland region.
- On February 26, the Scientific Reports paper reported that genetic analysis found a shift to human blood feeding in mosquitoes in Sundaland between 2.9 million and 1.6 million years ago, suggesting early Homo erectus presence.
- Different research groups have long debated whether hominins reached Southeast Asia around 1.8 million or 1.3 million years ago due to a sparse fossil record, while climate shifts in the last 2 million years may have enabled migration across Sundaland and mosquito dietary changes.
- The team sequenced DNA from 38 mosquitoes representing 11 Leucosphyrus-group species collected during fieldwork from 1992 to 2020 and reconstructed evolutionary history using mutation-rate models.
- The study authors say they will trace olfactory and other genes to see whether adaptations occurred sequentially or in rapid bursts, which could inform future genetic and paleoanthropological work.
- Researchers caution that human blood feeding is rare among more than 3,500 mosquito species, so the mosquito evidence remains an indirect line pending fossil record confirmation by paleoanthropologists and genomicists.
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Mosquitoes have not always felt affinity for human blood, in part because these tiny but dangerous insects have existed long before humans.
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Leaning Left1Leaning Right0Center9Last UpdatedBias Distribution90% Center
Bias Distribution
- 90% of the sources are Center
90% Center
C 90%
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