Ask Lemmy

The real question is at the evolutionary level which is, what the fuck do the little assholes get out of making their bite a slight irritation?

A tick can bury its head in the tip of dick, spend days sucking so much blood it's an engorged blimp. Assuming I am blind and my arms are too short to reach my dick, the thing could be there for years and I would have no fucking clue it was there unless I got lime disease or someone else sees it.

Hyperbolic scenario with the whole dick tip thing but I have gotten back from hunting. Saw what looked like a scratch on my neck line, thought it was weird cuz I didn't remember any prickers scratching me. Fast forward 3 days and I look in the mirror and see what looks like a skin tag. I'm like what the fuck, grab tweezers and rip it off to learn it was a fuckin tick sucking on my jugular for days. They are like the opposite of the mosquito, the tick releases a numbing agent or something so you don't even feel the bite or the tick the whole time its on you.

Tldr: mosquitoes r dum 4 itching. Ticks r pros at stealth biting.

They do a really shitty job of 'not irritating' your skin. They get it right half the time. The only biological success they've had in evolution is that they are so freaking numerous. Ask a northern Ontarian Indigenous person who grew up in rocky swamps ... you haven't seen mosquitoes until you've breathed in clouds of them.

mosquito bites are epic

I am sure I read somewhere that they defecate in the hole after they have drawn blood and that is what causes the irritation. That does not sound as if they are particularly worried about being regarded as annoying, in fact it feels like they see it as a bonus.