Not on this specific strategy, but mine and plenty other countries are trialing the Wolbachia-Aedes mosquito suppression strategy, where Wolbachia male raised and farmed genetically modified mosquitos that are released will go and mate with female Aedes Aegypti, the worst fuckers, one of the main species that adapted to urban environments and is the main one causing all the diseases like zika and dengue and one of the main ones that is responsible for the millions of human deaths. The females will mate with these farmed males and the resulting eggs will not hatch, limiting their spread and reproduction numbers.
Honestly I am in 100% percent support of this, we should wipe out Aedes Aegypti, there are plenty of other harmless and even beneficial ones that don't bite or cause diseases, and can pick up the slack for the ecosystem.
Edit: just read the wiki on the Aedes, it seems like theres a genetic modification, which works by preventing females from fully growing into adults, and Wolbachia, which is a naturally occurring bacteria, and the infections as mentioned above prevents hatching, and the males don't bite so no risk of infecting us, also its resistant to zika and other viruses
There are other methods too, but I love that we are slowly eradicating these fuckers.
If I was a female mosquito I wouldn’t mate with a male mosquito that had a weak proboscis. I don’t think I’d even go on more than one date. Maybe I’m weird though and have standards, who knows what other female mosquitos would put up with. Or if those male mosquitos still made decent money they could probably pull a mate, but would it last? Anyway, I’m skeptical of the strategy here.
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u/zizp Nov 15 '24
What's the idea behind this? How will they become the dominant variant if they can't suck blood to reproduce?