The Lee County Mosquito Control District in Florida has reached a new milestone in the fight against invasive mosquitoes after releasing sterile ones by drone.
The approach could help crews reach harder-to-access areas while improving the evenness of insect dispersal, WGCU reported.
Rachel Morreale, manager of the district's sterile insect technique program, said the shift could make releases more effective because the drone can reach places crews could not easily access by road.
"The reason why we like the drone and why it's so beneficial is that it helps us get a better distribution of these mosquitoes," she said.
Lee County is using a Skydio X10 drone equipped with a release cassette that can hold up to 35,000 mosquitoes. Morreale said the district does not dump that full amount in one place. Instead, the cassette moves over a broad area to spread them out.
The effort is aimed at reducing the invasive Aedes aegypti mosquito population. The district releases lab-raised, sterilized male mosquitoes that mate with wild females, producing eggs that do not hatch.
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The district is not releasing biting mosquitoes into neighborhoods. Only male mosquitoes are used in the program, and they do not bite.
The X10 can fly at speeds up to 45 mph and stay airborne for up to 40 minutes, giving crews a tool that can cover ground efficiently without being confined to roadways.
The drone release is part of Lee County's existing sterile insect technique program, which already relies on a carefully managed production process. The mosquitoes are raised to adulthood in about 10 days and then sterilized with X-rays, as in medical settings.
The district also developed a mosquito strain native to Captiva and Fort Myers.
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Each sterilized mosquito is marked with fluorescent powder so the district can track survival and recapture rates once the insects are released into the wild.
"Before we were stuck with whatever we could access by road, so having this drone means that we can actually put the mosquitoes in places where they want to be and get a better even spread of mosquitoes all around," Morreale explained to WGCU.
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