TIL many female insects mate only once in their lives. Insect populations can be controlled by releasing flocks of sterile males into the wild. Females mate with them, never give birth and simply die. - eviltoast
      • Lemon_Rick@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        We’d all love more Lemmies in the banks,

        So any ol’ content gets thanks

        And we’ll yet raise a toast

        To this weird old repost

        'Bout a bug penis shooting all blanks

  • d00phy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I believe they are trying to do this exact thing with certain mosquito populations.

      • Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        There are thousands upon thousands of species of mosquito, only a few hundred bite humans.

        This would only be targeted at the dozen or so that carry major disease like malaria, west Nile, dengue fever, Zika, etc.

        Aedes aegypti is at the top of the list.

      • MeowdyPardner@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        From what I’ve read I get the impression that eliminating biting mosquitoes wouldn’t have much impact - there are lots of types of mosquitoes and supposedly few are of the biting kind, and at the same time the ones that pollinate or are food for other animals are usually not a significant source of food or pollination, and the ones that do pollinate don’t pollinate anything important to us according to a random article I read. So basically for it to matter you would need to be eliminating a kind that bites and makes up a majority of the pollination or food for something else which seems unlikely.