"Understanding how the insects first got the taste for human blood has long intrigued scientists and could help us better fight the spread of mosquito-borne disease. Now a new study suggests that some mosquitoes' thirst for human blood may be truly primeval, stretching back as far as 1.8 million years ago—a time when our ancient human ancestor Homo erectus may have been flourishing."
"The team calculated that the mosquitoes likely developed their anthropophily—their taste for human blood—at a point some 2.9 million to 1.6 million years ago. This overlaps with the same period in which some scientists believe H. erectus, an early hominin, arrived in the region."
"The switch to human feeding was much older than we expected and so could not have been in response to the arrival of anatomically modern humans, says Catherine Walton, a study co-author and a senior lecturer in Earth and environmental sciences at the University of Manchester."
Mosquitoes are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths annually through disease transmission. Researchers analyzed DNA from 40 mosquitoes across 11 Anopheles leucosphyrus species in Southeast Asia to understand when these insects developed their preference for human blood. The study found that anthropophily—the taste for human blood—likely evolved between 2.9 and 1.6 million years ago, overlapping with the period when Homo erectus may have inhabited the region. This timeline predates anatomically modern humans, suggesting the behavioral shift occurred much earlier than previously believed and could not have been a response to modern human arrival.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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