TITLE:
Mosquito Control, Killing off the Females
AUTHORS:
Phi Tran
KEYWORDS:
Mosquitoes Malaria Dengue, Control, Toxic, Sugar Bait, ATSB, Samples
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Animal Sciences,
Vol.14 No.1,
December
6,
2023
ABSTRACT: In addition to causing discomfort, female mosquitoes introduce disease-carrying viruses and bacteria into the bloodstream of their victims. There
are numerous publications describing the uses of sugary mosquito baits with promising
results. Without temperature control measures however, these methods are mainly
useful for only nectar-feeding insects, including male mosquitoes, because the warmth
of the blood is a condition for the females to locate their meals. The efforts required
to keep the baits fresh against the natural spoiling process make them less attractive
or impractical to implement. These experiments address these issues by using warm
baits of water, sugar, boric acid, and antibiotics. Overnight, the general areas
became clear of blood-sucking female mosquitoes while in numbers, the harmless males
concentrated into the immediate vicinities. Control vs. experiment protocol established
no other logical explanation for this phenomenon other than that females were attracted
and killed by the bait. As expected, there was no female mosquito’s activity in
these areas. There weren’t many left to do the work.