Fightin' skeeters with skeeters

jadamz

the Countess
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The War Against Zika: Fighting Mosquitoes With Mosquitoes

Thousands of male mosquitoes were released in South Miami’s Brewer Park Thursday.

They have been rendered sterile in a Kentucky lab by a company called MosquitoMate.

The mosquitoes were left incapable of impregnating females, after being infused with a Wolbachia bacteria.

The plan is over six months to release six million of the bugs that don’t bite, but have a healthy sex drive, and will mate with females whose eggs won’t hatch.
 
The War Against Zika: Fighting Mosquitoes With Mosquitoes

Thousands of male mosquitoes were released in South Miami’s Brewer Park Thursday.

They have been rendered sterile in a Kentucky lab by a company called MosquitoMate.

The mosquitoes were left incapable of impregnating females, after being infused with a Wolbachia bacteria.

The plan is over six months to release six million of the bugs that don’t bite, but have a healthy sex drive, and will mate with females whose eggs won’t hatch.

If mosquitoes went extinct: Mosquito larvae are very important in aquatic ecology. Many other insects and small fish feed on them and the loss of that food source would cause their numbers to decline as well. Anything that feeds on them, such as game fish, raptorial birds, etc. would, in turn, suffer too.

hmmm, I wonder if the genetics inside the "Mosquito mates" would cause some kind of chain reaction making the game fish, raptorial birds, etc unable to reproduce.
 
I had a picture for a minute of very tiny instruments lol :D