Video on social media doesn’t show genetically modified mosquitoes

CLAIM: A video clip shows a genetically modified mosquito with a serial number on its body that has been released as part of an experiment funded by Bill Gates’ foundation.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The insect in the widely circulating video isn’t a mosquito but an aphid, a common garden insect. The black markings on the bug’s body are naturally occuring. Researchers, including some funded by the Gates Foundation, have however released genetically modified mosquitoes in limited experiments in recent years.

THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing a short video claiming to show a mosquito that’s been genetically altered and branded by scientists.

The clip features a person holding a tiny, long-legged insect in their hands and gently brushing back its wings to reveal black marks on the lower part of its body that resemble numbers.

“Since when do mosquitoes have #s stamped on them?” the text on the video reads.

The video then shows a portion of a 2016 press release with the headline “Gates Foundation Awards $35 million for Mosquito Research.”

“BILL GATES is to blame for releasing millions of GMO mosquitoes into the public.. the more you know,” wrote one Instagram user who shared the video clip in a post that’s been liked nearly 7,000 times as of Tuesday.

But insect experts agree the bug in the video clearly isn’t a mosquito and is most likely a winged aphid that tends to have black markings on its body.

Nora Besansky, a biology professor at the University of Notre Dame who specializes in mosquitoes, notes mosquitoes only have one pair of wings while the insect in the video has two pairs.

The bug also has a long, green rectangular abdomen that isn’t characteristic of a mosquito but of the aphid, which is common in Europe and is also found in North America, she said.

“Difficult to describe authoritatively without inspecting closely all diagnostic characteristics, but I’d bet 10,000 USD that it is *not* a mosquito,” Besansky wrote in an email. “I have worked on mosquitoes ever since before 1980, so this should give me some authority to say that we are NOT looking at a mosquito.”

Dina Fonseca, chair of the entomology department at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, was among a number of other insect experts that concurred.

She noted the insect in the video lacked a proboscis, which is the needle-like feeding tube a mosquito uses to suck blood from other organisms, and also had small red eyes, which are not characteristic of a mosquito.

“Mosquitoes are also covered in scales and quite fragile,” Fonseca wrote in an email “I doubt anyone would be able to mishandle them like that without wings and legs falling off.”

As to the black markings, those are commonly found on silver birch aphids, Fonseca and other experts agreed.

In any case, researchers don’t typically mark insects with serial numbers for tracking purposes, added Zach Adelman, a professor in the entomology department at Texas A&M University in College Station.

“There is just no way to do that (or reason to), since programs that involve the release of modified or sterile insects must produce and release millions of individuals per week,” he explained in an email.

Genetically modified mosquitoes were released in the Cayman Islands in 2010, Brazil in 2012 and most recently in Florida in 2021 as part of various research projects focused on curbing the spread of dengue and Zika viruses, malaria and other mosquito-borne illnesses, according to Adelman and other experts.

“To my knowledge, all of these trials have been heavily regulated, and none were associated with any negative outcomes,” he wrote in an email. “None of this should be shocking or surprising to anyone.”

In the Gates Foundation-funded project referenced in the social media posts, insects were tracked using a fluorescent powder that was dusted over them prior to their release, according to Naima Sykes, a manager for the project, known as Target Malaria.

The project involved the release of some 6,400 genetically-modified mosquitoes in Burkina Faso in 2019.

Sykes said the goal of the effort is to develop genetically modified mosquitoes that help reduce malaria transmission in sub-Saharan Africa, where 95% of malaria cases are concentrated.

___

This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.