Word: gambusia
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Biological Controls. To combat California's rampant mosquitoes, researchers hope to develop new pesticides, but mainly for "emergencies." They now prefer to use the bugs' natural enemies. Culex, for example, can be controlled by the mosquito fish (gambusia) and the common guppy which eat mosquito larvae in water. Certain bacilli, when applied to pasture land, also kill mosquito larvae. Another method includes releasing large numbers of male mosquitoes of the same species but of different strains. Because of genetic incompatibilities, the eggs of the females fail to hatch...
...health department, Pest-Hunter Duclus uses modern methods. All through the summer mosquito hunting season he and his men spray DDT into swamps, tidal flats, ponds and irrigation ditches. But Duclus says he owes much of his success to the voracious appetite of a small (2-in.) fish called Gambusia affinis. This olive-colored, viviparous cousin of the guppy thrives in the stagnant waters where mosquitoes breed, lives to a ripe old age of two or three years, and never loses its taste for wriggling insect larvae. In its prime, Gambusia affinis can polish off 100 incipient mosquitoes...
Duclus brought his first Gambusia from Bakersfield to Los Angeles six years ago, has bred them ever since in reservoir debris-basins, ponds and pools scattered throughout the city. Now anyone with mosquito trouble can pick up a free supply of the fast-multiplying little fish...
Last week Duclus reported that in the past three months he and his men have distributed 49,559 Gambusia to housewives, ranchers, and swimming-pool owners. They themselves have planted 45,100 in rivers, streams and swamps. While Duclus and his hungry minnows stand guard, Angelenos will never have to spend the long, warm evenings slapping themselves silly...
...Mollies in his aquarium, transferring the stock to La Jolla by airplane in thermos bottles. Never did he find a male, and none of the females produced by heterogeneous mating with alien fish showed any traits inherited from their fathers. Even when he mated a Molly with a male Gambusia (by artificial insemination), her offspring were female. Dr. Hubbs even tried to create artificial male Mollies-with no luck. By putting male hormones in their water, he made some Mollies brighter colored. But they remained Amazon, and did not attempt to be fathers...