Sterile insect technique

The sterile insect technique is a method of biological insect control, whereby overwhelming numbers of sterile insects are released into the wild. The released insects are normally male, as the females cause the damage usually by laying eggs in the crop, or, in the case of mosquitoes, taking blood from humans. The sterile males compete with wild males to mate with the females. Females that mate with a sterile male produce no offspring, thus reducing the next generation's population. Repeated release of sterile males can diminish small populations, although success with dense target populations has not been demonstrated.