Why are we so fond of mosquitoes?

Several millennia ago, our ancestors did not suffer from mosquito bites, but once the bloodsuckers "realized" all the benefits of neighborhood with us.
Once all the mosquito ancestors preferred life in the forest, and as a diet - its inhabitants. But at some point a part of the mosquitoes switched to people and began to live in our homes, thereby making a very successful evolutionary taste change. This was stated by the authors of the article in the journal Nature.

Our way of life is ideal for mosquitoes. In a man's dwelling there is always water, where insects can multiply, our body is not covered with hair, but we live in a collective.

• Leslie Vosshall, one of the participants in the study

The bloodsuckers, however, had to work hard (in the evolutionary sense) before they were accustomed to reproduce in containers with clean water, which is typical of a human dwelling. Prior to this, mosquitoes liked turbid water and preferred to breed in "natural" containers - for example, in tree-filled trees filled with water.

Why did some of the bloodsuckers prefer "for lunch" to us - specialists helped understand the genetics and the village of Rabai in Kenya. The latter has long attracted scientists to the fact that two different types of mosquitoes live here side by side (several hundred meters): - Aedes aegypti formosus (black) and Aedes aegypti aegypti (brown). The first live in the forest and prefer animals, the latter - reproduce in jars with clean water and bite people.

This Kenyan village visually shows us what happened thousands of years ago. Participants of ancient events are still there.