Would it be wrong to eradicate mosquitoes?

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The mosquito is the most dangerous animal in the world, carrying diseases that kill one million people a year. Now the Zika virus, which is carried by mosquitoes, has been linked with thousands of babies born with brain defects in South America. Should the insects be wiped out?

There are 3,500 known species of mosquito but most of those don't bother humans at all, living off plant and fruit nectar.

It's only the females from just 6% of species that draw blood from humans - to help them develop their eggs. Of these just half carry parasites that cause human diseases. But the impact of these 100 species is devastating.

"Half of the global population is at risk of a mosquito-borne disease," says Frances Hawkes from the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Greenwich. "They have had an untold impact on human misery."

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Deadly mosquitoes

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• Aedes aegypti - spreads diseases including Zika, yellow fever and dengue fever; originated in Africa but is found in tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world
• Aedes albopictus - spreads diseases including yellow fever and dengue fever and West Nile virus; originated in Southeast Asia but is now found in tropical and subtropical regions throughout the world
• Anopheles gambiae (pictured above) - also known as the African malaria mosquito, the species is one of the most efficient transmitters for the spread of the disease

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More than a million people, mostly from poorer nations, die each year from mosquito-borne diseases including malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever.

Some mosquitoes also carry the Zika virus, which was first thought to cause only mild fever and rashes. However, scientists are now worried it can damage babies in the womb. The Zika virus has been linked with a spike in microcephaly - where babies are born with smaller heads - in Brazil.

There's a constant effort to educate people to use treated nets and other tactics to avoid being bitten. But would it just be simpler to make an entire species of disease-carrying mosquito extinct?

Biologist Olivia Judson has supported "specicide" of 30 types of mosquito. She said doing this would save one million lives and only decrease the genetic diversity of the mosquito family by 1%. "We should consider the ultimate swatting," she told the New York Times.