are there useless animals?

[silentsentinel]

What do pandas do for the environment?

 

[marcuszer0]

Humans. We leave nothing to the environment, and take everything from it. We are so useless to the ecosystem, that we destroy it. We wipe out entire species of animals, cut down whole forests, and basically attack earth restlessly.

So everyone saying that there is a useless animal when that animal doesn't use nuclear bombs, industrial tree clearing machines, and all the fossil fuels it can find to power its MANY devices, is a hypocrite.

So yay to the hypocrites.

 

[Calatar]

No, every life form plays a role in the biome. With ever species comes the devastating loss of a niche organism and biodiversity.

Viruses. Not animals, and disputed to even be alive, but there is no reason for them. We need to extinct them.

even though viruses are said to be the superior life forms on earth?

OT:this has been said before so I will slightly modify it. Snails...in Sweden. there are no creatures that feed on them and all they do is swarm over gardens like a plague. a few summers ago, I walked out to my yard and started picking snails from the lawn...I lost count after 200.
and this happened every day. it should be noted that I have a very big lawn and it was an extra wet summer but the average lawn gets several hundred snails every week in summer. I hate mother****ing snails.

Viruses cannot be a superior life form as they are not a form of life.

As for the snails, are they invasive species? Sooner or later something will evolve to prey on them, no resource goes unexploited on Earth.

Viruses are actually classified as a form of life. Girlfriend is an evolutionary biology major who just completed several classes about microscopic life forms. I too thought that they were in that nether realm of not-really-living, but scientific thought has changed apparently.

OT: "Purpose" is meaningless. All animals do things which have effects on other things. If an animal disappeared, that effect would disappear. "Purpose" is just how important you think that effect is. If the effect disappeared, or never even existed, animals would evolve differently. Since all animals evolve to fit a niche, you might just say that the purpose of all animals is to fit a niche. Extinction is just nature's way of saying, "You've been downsized because somebody else is better at your niche" or "We regret to inform you your position no longer exists."

 

[Piecewise]

The blob fish.

Google it.

It looks really depressed.

I'll have to second that.

As for my animal, I'll go with any and all of the deep-sea fangly fish. The only purpose they serve is being absolutely fucking terrifying for no discernible reason whatsoever.

They eat the refuse from the higher parts of the ocean. Without them the sea would transform into a festering pile of rotting fish guts.

any parasite ever.

Actually parasites are some of the most useful creatures in the entire world. They drive evolution, control populations, and influence the world to such an extent that removing them would basically end life as we know it.

Mosquitoes, ticks(don't know about the spelling) and many of the parasitic worms that live inside the bodies of a host.

Parasites drive evolution in ways you don't understand. Its a misnomer that they do nothing but leach off their host. I suggest reading the book "Parasite Rex", it's rather eye opening to those who don't understand just how important parasites are.

i'd say that snails seem rather useless on the whole
at least I never see any real purpose to their existence

Parasites and many other small animals and insects eat or live in or on them all the time.

Viruses. Not animals, and disputed to even be alive, but there is no reason for them. We need to extinct them.

except for the fact that they and bacterium make up the lowest level of the food chain for the sea so without them everything dies. Every quart of seawater contains billions of viruses.




Overall it seems like people where are giving bugs and parasites a very bad shake, but we can't even exist without them. Removing all the ants from a forest damages it more then blasting it with high intensity x-rays and removing parasites from the world would cause huge numbers of population imbalance and ecological destruction.

Basically, while there may be animals that hold less of a place in the environment there are none which hold no place.

Incidentally did you know that there is a very good chance that you have a brain parasite right now? One called Toxoplasma, a relative of the parasite that causes malaria. It effects over half the people in the world and is almost ubiquitous is civilized areas. Toxoplasma's preferred host is a cycle between mouse/rat and cat but it often get's into humans by accident. When in humans it forms cysts in their brains and can subtlety alter their attitudes. It does this in mice too; it makes them less nervous and more outgoing, hence more likely to be eaten by a cat. It does much the same thing in people. Remember that next time you're working up the courage to ask someone out.

 

[Stabby Joe]

The Panda since there's so few many as it is a we're hardly feeling the effects of that... further more they're picky over what they eat and who to mate with.

An animal that's picky when it comes to SEX? Scratch that, a living organism that's picky when it comes to SEX!?

Deserves to be extinct if you ask me.

 

[GrinningManiac]

People are quick to point fingers at the Panda and say "look, it cannot sustain itself! It is a failure of evolution!"

I say "Nay!, the Panda is the pinpoint of evolutionary achievement: It has made itself SO adorable, humans cannot help but try to save it. It's a parasitic beauty!"

 

[CloakedOne]

Even the most useless animal serves a purpose, say if one animal died out, it would really fuck up the food chain.

Second that.

 

[Jark212]

The blob fish.

Google it.

It looks really depressed.

I'll have to second that.

As for my animal, I'll go with any and all of the deep-sea fangly fish. The only purpose they serve is being absolutely fucking terrifying for no discernible reason whatsoever.

Our food chain are not dependent on anything that deep down anyways. Lets just drop a nuke down there and call it a day...

Spoiler: Before they get us

 

[CloakedOne]

Humans?

God yes.

 

[Hyldago]

i heard about a scientific study that prooved mosqitoes were the only living thing that wasn't the main part of the diet of any other organism. Basically the mosqitoe could be completely eradiacted and while there would be an imballance in the food chain it would recover. On ther other hand mosqitoes do help to controll the human population ie. by spreading deases and making the outside less appealing therefor promoting obesety.

Fun fact: The femal mosqitoe is the blood sucking monster whilst the male mosqitoe's only purpose is to reproduce...

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Guinea Pigs. What exactly are they there for apart from the Incas to worship and eat?

 

[PrimoThePro]

pandas. they seem suicidal anyways, just let 'em go.

 

[Plazmatic]

I was reading a post in the topic : "Why are insects and other small creatures the subject of so much hatred?" and reposted with an ending sentence "why are they still alive? do they surve a purpose?" and thought, are here animals that really, have no reason to live? their only use is to annoy?. even spiders and bees have uses, they eat other bugs, to end overppulation, or make honey, and impregnate (other word for that, couldn't find it) flowers and trees.
but like a wasp, i don't see a reason for them to live...
even lemmings have uses! they serve as food for many animals!
that brings me to the following question, are there useless animals?
(search bar approved)

wasps eat bugs.
Cockroaches clean up filth, they are normally not annoyances in their native habitats, but since they have been brought from the tropics into non native areas, they appear useless.

any ways Horse flies are the most useless and annoying animals... they fucking hurt when they bite and have stopped me from going to many of my favorite camping spots. And there fucking huge, they can kill other small animals too. One time, when I was 8 or so, I went on a camping trip, and I found some lizards, which I kept in a cage, for about a day, gave them crickets and some water, and some ample living conditions. The next morning I did not see any of them up when I looked at there cage a few feet away, when I got closer, I was shocked to see them all dead, and 8 freaking horse flies on top of them. Each horse fly was about 1- 1.5 inches long, and about a half an inch in width, with weird green red eyes, and a yellow tan body. Later to show my disgust we drowned them and burned them, the fucking shits..

This is what they looked like

note that there are more colors and variety, like 2 inch long black ones

 

[reg42]

I don't think so. Everything feeds off something else.
Though, the dodo's passing doesn't seem to have fucked up anything.

 

[Xojins]

All living things serve some purpose in the ecosystem, unfortunately. So even the most annoying of creatures (mosquitoes for example) cannot be removed.

 

[mip0]

Mosquitoes, ticks(don't know about the spelling) and many of the parasitic worms that live inside the bodies of a host.

I don't know about mosquitos as a lot of animals eat them. But I'll support you on ticks. They are "useless", not part of any cycle.

 

[toapat]

Skunks

they lack an actually unique ecological niche and piss everyone off who has ever smelled them.

 

[Urgh76]

Praying Mantises, what the hell is their religion anyway?