Fossils may not tell the complete story of early humans. Mosquitoes could fill in the gaps | CNN

Mosquitoes haven’t always had a taste for human blood — partly because the tiny yet dangerous insects have been around a lot longer than humans. Pinpointing when mosquitoes shifted their preference to human blood could provide a novel window into the spread of early human ancestors across the globe, according to a new study. The genetic analysis found that certain mosquitoes collected in Southeast Asia, including ones capable of transmitting malaria, likely evolved in response to the presence of our early ancestors, or hominins, in the region between 2.9 million and 1.6 million years ago, which could support some hypotheses for when prehistoric humans reached the area. The findings, published February 26 in the journal Scientific Reports, suggest that Homo erectus may have been present in numbers abundant enough to trigger such an adaptation in some forest-dwelling mosquitoes, said study coauthor Catherine Walton, senior lecturer in Earth and environmental sciences at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. Traditionally, scientists have largely relied on fossil evidence and sources of ancient DNA to map the timeline and locations of prehistoric humans as they sprea