Mosquitoes can be brought together, mailed and stay alive – Quartz

In the near future, it is likely that mosquito-borne diseases, such as Zika, dengue and yellow fever, will be controlled by the mosquitoes themselves. Scientists have already experimented with a method of releasing male sterilized mosquitoes, which do not sting, into the population. Sterile mosquitoes "mate" with females, which then carry no offspring and die, causing the rapid decline of mosquito populations.

But a mosquito such as mosquitoes Aedes aegypti, the species that most often carries diseases like Zika, often does not fly more than one-tenth of a mile (200 meters) during its lifetime. This means that to use this technique, scientists must develop the art of carefully sending thousands of live mosquitoes to specific locations to release them.

And a team of researchers has just determined the ideal shipping configuration: you have to pack them very, very tight. We are talking about 1,200 mosquitoes in the space of one teaspoon, or 240 mosquitoes per cubic centimeter, according to the article published in this week's Journal of Insect Science. Look how crushed they are! Yes, they are still alive:

The New Mexico State University team found that the best way to survive as many mosquitoes as possible on a 24-hour ride was to pack them into syringes and compress them together. They tried to pack the Aedes aegypti at different densities and found that the maximum damage – 240 per centimeter – caused the least damage to the animals after they were sent in an overnight package from New Mexico State University. their co-authors from California, Davis.

The thin exoskeletons of the mosquitoes seem to bend quite well, and the nearby places isolate the mosquitoes from the damage that would otherwise be caused by the vibrations during transport.

Researchers from Michigan State University and the drone company M3 Consulting Group were also co-authors of the study. (In the future, sterilized male mosquitoes could be released by drones stolen from specific locations, but to do this, one must find ways to keep them alive during the flight – so here's this study.)

So there you have it. When storing mosquitoes, it is best to crush them with other mosquitoes – and do not forget to give the person to whom you are shipping the insects an alert.