It is difficult to find developing mosquitoes, even for professionals. Mosquito sites can be as small as a thimble or 30ft high in a tree. For this reason, a commonly used approach is ‘broad casting.’ Flood the area with chemicals to increase the probability of affecting mosquito sites. These methods include spraying and fogging, by hand, by truck or by airplane.
MosquitoMate is developing a new, targeted approach, in which small doses of pesticide are carried directly to mosquito sites. And the pesticide carrier? Male mosquitoes.
To find biting female mosquitoes, nothing is better than a male mosquito. And male mosquitoes do not bite or transmit disease.
Congratulations to our scientists on their newest publication in Public Library of Science!
Dear MosquitoMate,
I love your story, but I have a question I hope you can answer. If we start killing off future generations of mosquito’s does that affect other living things {frog’s that eat them, fish ?, etc…}? Thank you
S. Rees
Dear S. Rees,
Thank you for the question, which is something we’ve worked hard to address. In reply, there have been no negative effects on frogs, fish, etc. And the mosquitoes that we’re targeting are invasive species. Even if they were entirely removed from your yard, this would effectively be ‘returning to the natural state’ before these invasive mosquitoes arrived in the USA.
The MosquitoMate Team