I asked six leading LLMs this question.
Two of their answers surprised me. The rest were incorrect. Some were more misleadingly incorrect than others.
This reveals a secret to designing effective and successful AI products.
🏆🏆 Perplexity
Yes, some mosquito species do bite leeches. A groundbreaking study by researchers at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences has revealed that the mosquito species Uranotaenia sapphirina feeds on the blood of earthworms and leeches. This discovery is significant because it challenges the long-held assumption that mosquitoes only feed on vertebrate animals.Key Findings• Unique Feeding Behavior: Uranotaenia sapphirina, a common mosquito species in eastern North America, was found to obtain 100% of its blood meals from worms and leeches.• Implications for Disease Transmission: This feeding behavior could potentially impact the transmission of pathogens. For example, Uranotaenia sapphirina mosquitoes that feed exclusively on worms and leeches have tested positive for Eastern equine encephalitis virus and West Nile virus.• Indirect Virus Contact: While the mosquitoes are unlikely to become infected with these viruses by feeding on worms, there is a possibility that they could come into contact with viruses by feeding on leeches that have previously fed on virus-infected animal hosts.Broader ImplicationsThis discovery expands our understanding of mosquito host ranges and feeding behaviors. It suggests that the potential hosts for mosquitoes are considerably broader than previously thought. This new information could have significant implications for our understanding of disease transmission and mosquito ecology.The study highlights the need for further research into mosquito-host interactions, particularly regarding invertebrate hosts. As Lawrence Reeves, the lead researcher, stated, “This study really highlights that we still have much to learn about mosquitoes”.
✅ Correct answer.
✅ Provides links to sources and related information.
✅ Provides shareable link to the conversation: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/do-mosquitoes-bite-leeches-w5huK163TuKAOcxnueZ8hg#0
🏆 Gemini 2.0 Flash Experimental
It’s an interesting question! While it’s not the norm, some mosquitoes do indeed bite leeches.Here’s what we know:Mosquitoes have diverse diets: While many mosquito species prefer the blood of vertebrates like mammals and birds, some species have been found to feed on invertebrates.A specific example: Research has shown that the mosquito species Uranotaenia sapphirina specifically feeds on the blood of earthworms and leeches. This was a surprising discovery, as it was previously thought that these mosquitoes primarily fed on frogs and toads.So, in short, while it’s not common for all mosquitoes, some species do bite leeches for their blood. This highlights the diverse feeding habits of mosquitoes and how much we are still learning about their behavior.
✅ Correct answer.
🤷 Provided two source links, but presented many “facts” that lacked citations.
❌ Didn’t provide a way to share a link to the answer or the related conversation.
👎 Claude 3.5 Sonnet:
This is a fascinating but very obscure ecological question. Based on my understanding of mosquito feeding habits, they generally don’t bite leeches. Mosquitoes typically feed on warm-blooded animals (mammals and birds) because they are attracted to body heat, carbon dioxide, and specific chemical signatures these animals produce. Leeches, being cold-blooded invertebrates, wouldn’t produce these attractive signals.Additionally, leeches have a tough, muscular body wall that would likely be difficult for a mosquito’s proboscis to penetrate, unlike the softer skin of their usual hosts.Since this is quite an obscure question about a very specific ecological interaction that may not be well documented, I should note that while I aim to provide accurate information, I may hallucinate when answering questions about such specific and uncommon interactions. If you’re interested in this for research purposes, I’d recommend consulting a parasitologist or checking scientific literature on mosquito host preferences.
❌ ✅ Wrong answer. But Claude prominently warned me that this specific answer may be wrong. This is a huge improvement over the other incorrect LLMs, which presented their wrong answers authoritatively.
❌ Didn’t provide links to sources or related information.
❌ Didn’t provide a way to share a link to the answer or the related conversation.
👎👎 ChatGPT o1
There is no documented evidence or strong biological reason to suggest that mosquitoes feed on — or “bite” — leeches. Mosquitoes typically seek vertebrate hosts (such as mammals, birds, and sometimes reptiles) because they rely on cues like carbon dioxide, body heat, and certain body odors that are not produced in significant quantities by leeches.Why mosquitoes generally would not bite leechesHost detection:
Mosquitoes use CO₂, heat, and chemical signals given off by vertebrates. Leeches (being invertebrates) do not emit these signals in a way that would attract mosquitoes.Feeding preferences:
Mosquitoes are adapted to feed on vertebrate blood. While leeches do have a circulatory fluid, it is not the same as vertebrate blood, and it would not be considered a typical or efficient food source for mosquitoes.Habitat and behavior differences:
Even though both mosquitoes and some leeches (particularly aquatic species) may share marshy or aquatic environments, their interactions are more or less incidental. Mosquitoes typically rest on surfaces above water or vegetation, while leeches remain in or very close to the water column or substrate, reducing any opportunity for direct contact.Consequently, while mosquitoes and leeches may coexist in similar habitats, mosquitoes do not typically — and are not known to — target leeches as bloodmeal hosts.
❌ Wrong answer.
❌ Didn’t provide links to sources or related information.
✅ Provides shareable link to the conversation: https://chatgpt.com/share/67730f81-98a0-8003-944b-1f4a1dc92cf5
👎👎 Mistral
Mosquitoes typically do not bite leeches. Mosquitoes are known to feed on the blood of various animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and even some fish, but leeches are not a common target for them. Leeches themselves are blood-sucking creatures, but they feed on vertebrate animals, not on other invertebrates like mosquitoes.The feeding habits of mosquitoes and leeches are quite different, and there is no known ecological interaction where mosquitoes would feed on leeches. Mosquitoes use their proboscis to pierce the skin and suck blood, while leeches use their suckers and teeth to attach to their hosts and feed on blood.’
❌ Wrong answer.
❌ Didn’t provide links to sources or related information.
✅ Provides shareable link to the conversation:
👎👎 Llama (Meta AI)
Mosquitoes primarily feed on nectar and other sugary substances. Female mosquitoes may bite animals and humans to obtain protein from blood, which they need to lay eggs.Leeches, on the other hand, are primarily aquatic and feed on the blood and bodily fluids of other animals.There is no documented evidence of mosquitoes biting leeches. Their feeding habits and ecosystems generally don’t overlap in a way that would lead to this behavior.
❌ Wrong answer.
❌ Didn’t provide links to sources or related information.
❌ Didn’t provide a way to share a link to the answer or the related conversation.
Takeaways for AI product design
Accuracy is critical. Of course AI product makers strive for accurate answers. But even the best LLMs will hallucinate and get things wrong sometimes.
Just as important as accuracy is helping people calibrate trust so they can make better decisions.
Research shows a repeated pattern in human behavior around early AI tools: people tend to bounce between counterproductive extremes of overreliance and aversion:
Initial overreliance: When encountering an AI tool, people frequently accept its suggestions without double-checking them. They trust it too much — more than they would a human expert.Algorithm aversion: After the tool makes a mistake, people often shut down and reject even helpful AI assistance. They trust it too little — less than they would a human expert who made a mistake.
To succeed, designers need to keep people involved, to help them find a healthily skeptical middle ground. How? We’re still hammering out the best practices, but here are three core guidelines:
1. Surface sources, and link to them
Perplexity’s approach — linking to primary research and showing its work — helped people verify its surprising claim.Without sources, even correct answers (like Gemini’s) are harder to trust and verify.Making sources easily checkable builds credibility — and more importantly it encourages people to get involved and verify claims.As fully “Explainable AI” (XAI) seems more and more an unrealistic pipe dream (though approaches to “show me your train of thought” show promise in certain contexts), source attribution is more important than ever.
2. Highlight risk, and help people manage it
Claude’s answer was wrong. But Claude served it up in a way that made it less likely for people to repost it as truth. Other LLMs included easily-ignored, ever-present “LLMs may sometimes hallucinate” warnings off to the side — but in the midst of an output that seemed at higher-than-usual risk of inaccuracy, Claude pointed out that higher risk and advised me to fact-check a specific claim.This stands in stark contrast to ChatGPT, Mistral, and Llama, which confidently presented incorrect reasoningAcknowledging uncertainty helps prevent destructive overreliance on AI systems. Research shows that, when AI tools present calibrated uncertainty, users can adjust their reliance appropriately and reduce confirmation bias in their decision making.
3. Design for verification and collaboration
AI tools should make it easy for people to share — and question — findings with other humans. Chats should default to privacy, and sensitive conversations about personal information or trade secrets should be kept private. But for simple questions about public information, we can make it easier to share parts of any conversation with friends and colleagues, to reduce misunderstanding that comes from loss of context and to encourage further fact-checking. Features like shareable conversation links and integrated source citations should be standard, not afterthoughts.
This isn’t just good product design— it’s essential for building collective knowledge and trust, and for defusing disinformation.
The future of AI products won’t be determined by their accuracy alone, but by how well they help humans make better decisions.
By designing to the complementary strengths of humans and of AI, we can augment human intelligence and agency, rather than attempting to replace them.
Sources / more background
Algorithm Aversion: People Erroneously Avoid Algorithms After Seeing Them Err
AI Overreliance Is a Problem. Are Explanations a Solution?
Overreliance on AI: Addressing Automation Bias Today
Increasing the Adoption of UX and the Products You Design— Part 1 | Part 2
How People Can Create — and Destroy — Value with Generative AI
Shaping minds: how first impressions drive AI adoption
Do mosquitoes bite leeches? was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
