But the evolutionary timescale at which mosquitos can adapt to avoid detection must be faster than that of humans adapting to find mosquitos itchy! Or so I thought—my current boring guess is that (1) mechanisms for the human body to detect foreign particles are fairly “broad”, (2) the required adaptation from the mosquitos to evade them are not-way-too-simple, and (3) we just haven’t put enough selection pressure to make such change happen.
The reason you find them itchy is because humans are selected to find them itchy most likely?
But the evolutionary timescale at which mosquitos can adapt to avoid detection must be faster than that of humans adapting to find mosquitos itchy! Or so I thought—my current boring guess is that (1) mechanisms for the human body to detect foreign particles are fairly “broad”, (2) the required adaptation from the mosquitos to evade them are not-way-too-simple, and (3) we just haven’t put enough selection pressure to make such change happen.
Yeah that would be my thinking as well.