Human beings have long been at war with mosquitos, and it’s not at all clear we’ve been winning. Malaria alone—just one of many deadly mosquito-borne illnesses—kills over 600,000 people every year, most of them very young children. Until now, all we’ve had were short-term solutions, like public inoculations, insecticides, traps, and (usually futile) hand-swatting. But a French tech startup called Tornyol is saying enough is enough: Let’s turn this never-ending war of attrition into a full-blown, mechanized campaign to eradicate our winged foes from the face of the Earth. Founded last year and backed by Y Combinator, the company has built a tiny—weighing in at just forty grams—drone that uses ultrasonic sonar to autonomously locate and track mosquitoes’ unique wingbeat frequency. They’re able to do this in such a way that they can distinguish mosquitoes from non-harmful insects, such as bees, according to the company’s website. Once they’ve locked onto the target like a heat-seeking missile, they swoop in and obliterate the mosquito in one of their four tiny propellers. The micro-drones can patrol an area of up to five acres, Tornyol claims, and fly for up to three minutes at a time before automatically returning to a charging station. First we zip ping pong balls, then butterflies and we'll end with mosquitoes pic.twitter.com/Oi4H40z7Uv — Alex Toussaint (@alextoussss) June 17, 2026 The company’s online “manifesto” reads like a slide from a VC pitch deck assembled by the Angel of Insectoid Death.