Hacker News Reader

Comment by supernova87a | Hacker News Reader

Does this even sound right numbers-wise?

On Tuesday, officials in the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District (FKMCD) gave final approval to release 750 million of the modified mosquitoes over a two-year period.

That would mean approx. 1M mosquitoes per day by this organization.

Who is cultivating (?) or growing 1M mosquitoes per day. Isn't that like a pickup truck bed cubed size of mosquitoes, every day?

Or is it being done across many, many sites?

View on HN

Aedis aegypti go from egg to adult in about a week and lay their eggs in any standing pool of water you can find. Maybe 100 total eggs per female over several broods before they die so it’s not that hard to cultivate millions a day.

Here’s a few examples— https://parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com/articles/https...

Your link got mangled some how, it is meant to be https://parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11...

750 million mosquitos would only be about 8300 pounds.

Logistically it does seem pretty difficult, but I know nothing about mosquito farming.

It's not the farming that's hard; it's the milking.

Brilliant. I know jokes are generally frowned upon here but this one had me cracking up

Yes, get a sense of humor HN.

Maybe they're counting the offspring? Although that doesn't seem quite right either (as it's not really controllable).

This is a small commission that is making this decision which has potential implications outside the Keys.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com