You are wrong to dismiss our limited understanding of the consequences of deliberately wiping out 3,500 species of mosquitoes (Nature 466, 432–434; 2010).

I would not object in principle to some mosquito extinctions, but your arguments need better ecological insight. To say that “bats feed mostly on moths, and less than 2% of their gut content is mosquitoes” is akin to saying that rice is unimportant in the human diet, based on a sample of visitors to a burger joint. Given that there are around 900 species of insect-eating bat, and mosquitoes in abundance, the insects almost certainly form an important component of some bats' diets.

And how would the mosquitoes be eradicated? The most common control methods — widespread spraying of insecticides, drainage of wetlands and release of alien invasive species — would inflict more than “collateral” damage.

If the risks associated with exterminating some mosquito species turn out to be not too great, then we should keep a small ex situ population for 100 years, say, so that any damage caused could still be undone.