The curious calico and her orange tomcat friend, Monu, had recently been sterilized and returned to the market.

The idea behind the technique is that by flooding orchards with sterilized insects, they will mate with fertile insects and produce no offspring, reducing the overall population.

To put it bluntly, if Bev had been born just a little earlier, she likely would have been sterilized if her own mother was not sterilized first.

It’s then filtered, purified and sterilized to create a product that can be injected.

Vector control officials in Southern California are starting to release sterilized male mosquitoes to combat the summertime onslaught of ankle biters.