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It's not obvious that a gene responsible for reproduction would produce an external characteristic that can be recognised by other mosquitoes.

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Neither is it obvious that it would not. And that needs to be shown here.

There is actually evidence to the contrary of your position. The grandparent post mentions mating discrimination.

That was found as a result of the experiment, though. I think he was just pointing out why the expectation was missed (or not seen as likely enough) before the experiment started.

I don’t think it’s weird to assume mosquitoes won’t be able to tell the difference. It turns out that was wrong, I hope it’s taken into account in this experiment.

It’s also not guaranteed that a gene that makes you glow red under fluorescent light will be noticed by other mosquitoes, but we can probably toss that in the pile of growing evidence.

“A fluorescent marker gene that glows under a special red light. This allows researchers to identify GM mosquitoes from wild mosquitoes.” https://www.cdc.gov/mosquitoes/mosquito-control/community/si...

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