London: Researchers have claimed that fungus could be the key to controlling mosquitoes.
The researchers from Swansea University said that fungus Metarhizium anisopliae, which lives in soil and kills a whole range of insects, also affects mosquito larvae if added to the water where the insect breeds, the BBC reported.
Scientists explained to the publication that normally what happens is the fungus attaches to its hosts, germinates and penetrates the body of the insect, colonises the insect and in the process the insect dies.
However, they said that in this case it doesn't germinate it just stays as spores packed in the body, in the gut, of the insect where it causes stress which activates a number of genes which trigger a whole range of responses leading to the death of the insect.
