The smell attracts mosquitoes to the skin of certain people. You can still try to protect yourself from mosquito bites with many tricks.
Is it have you always felt that mosquitoes attack you and leave your companions alone?
It’s not just imagination. According to research, mosquitoes really choose carefully who they bite. If a mosquito can choose from several people, it makes its choice based on smell.
The importance of smell was recently confirmed by researchers from John Hopkins University in the United States in his research. The researchers even found out which chemical compounds in human body odor attract mosquitoes.
The sense of smell of mosquitoes in itself has been known for a long time, point out Finnish insect experts, from the Kainuu ely-keskus Reima Leinonen and the superintendent of the University of Oulu Marko Mutane.
“It has been known that mosquitoes live in a world of scents. What they smell is in a completely different category than what humans can smell,” says Leinonen.
Fresh the US study is from the National Geographic magazine by however, the first to prove that mosquitoes can distinguish people based on smell even in a large area, in this case the size of a hockey puck.
The formation of human smell is very complex, states a researcher from John Hopkins University Stephanie Rankin-Turner in National Geographic. Odor consists of different chemical compounds, the proportion of which varies. Not all compounds are even known yet.
The researchers analyzed 15 known compounds from the subjects’ odors. It turned out that mosquitoes especially favored people who secreted a lot of carboxylic acids and acetoin. There are carboxylic acids in sweat. Both compounds are produced by beneficial microbes living on the skin.
A person’s smell can be affected by, for example, pregnancy, illnesses or what we drink or eat. However, some odor characteristics can remain the same even for years.
According to the researchers, this explains why the same people attract mosquitoes year after year.
Mosquitoes detect a person from dozens of meters away based on carbon dioxide. From about 15 meters away, they can see the silhouette of a person against the light.
According to Mutanen, it is entirely plausible that when a mosquito gets close to people, sweat and other human chemicals decide who the mosquito attacks.
“If there are two objects to choose from, that choice must be made on some basis. Whatever a mosquito chooses, it does not choose by chance. They can somehow sense which human individuals are better for them,” says Mutanen.
Mosquitoes are not fun. Only female mosquitoes suck blood because they need blood proteins and energy to lay their eggs.
Although there is nothing you can do about its characteristic smell, there are also tricks you can try to avoid mosquito bites.
First of all: you shouldn’t try to chase away mosquitoes by jumping and shouting. The more we jump and scream, the more we excrete carbon dioxide, and the more surely mosquitoes find us, says Leinonen.
Correspondingly, the calmer you can be, the harder it is for mosquitoes to find us, says Leinonen.
It can also get hot while bathing, so mosquitoes can find us based on the heat and the smell of sweat.
People with active surface circulation are effective at attracting mosquitoes because mosquitoes find them with the help of heat.
Where you stay and how you dress are also important. You can protect yourself from mosquito bites with covering clothes and light colors.
“Mosquitoes do not thrive in the scorching midday sun, in open and windy places. On the other hand, there are plenty of them in damp places and in the evenings,” says Leinonen.
For midsummer trips many also pack chemical mosquito repellents. Their active ingredient prevents insects from sensing carbon dioxide, sweat, humidity and heat emitted by humans.
The most used active ingredient in the world is DEET, or diethyltoluamide. It does not kill insects, it repels them.
In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about Thermacell control devices, which use the nerve agent prallethrin. Its effect on pollinators, fish and other surrounding nature is not well known.
The Safety and Chemicals Agency Tukes has approved Thermacell for use outside buildings and only in the yard. Using the device in, for example, the forest is prohibited.
In progress according to Leinonen’s and Mutanen’s early summer observations, it is an abundant mosquito year.
At the time of the interview on Tuesday, Mutanen was conducting field research in Utsjoki, where the large masses of mosquitoes had just started moving. Usually, the most abundant mosquito season in Northern Finland only starts after Midsummer.
Mutanen estimates that in central and eastern Finland mosquitoes will be at their most abundant this week and next week. It is still a mystery how the prevailing drought in southern Finland affects the number of mosquitoes.
in Finland for most, mosquitoes are just a matter of convenience, because the species of mosquitoes we have do not spread dangerous diseases.
Around the world, mosquitoes spread, among other things, malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, West Nile fever and microcephaly caused by the Zika virus. According to the World Health Organization, millions of people die every year from mosquito-borne diseases.
US researchers conducted their olfactory study in Zambia with mosquitoes of the Anopheles gambiae species, which spread malaria.
The results and further research can be helpful in the development of a new generation of pesticides, according to the experts interviewed by National Geographic.
When we understand how the microbiota of human skin attracts mosquitoes, it will be possible to develop individual ways to protect ourselves from mosquito bites in the future, researchers believe.
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