7 June 2022
If you want to avoid mosquito bites, there’s new research on how to do it.
Female mosquitos must eat blood in order to produce eggs so they fly around looking for a host. A new study led by the University of Washington teased out an additional way that mosquitos find us.
“I used to say there are three major cues that attract mosquitoes: your breath, your sweat and the temperature of your skin,” said Riffell, who is senior author on the paper.
“In this study, we found a fourth cue: the color red, which can not only be found on your clothes, but is also found in everyone’s skin. The shade of your skin doesn’t matter, we are all giving off a strong red signature. Wearing clothes that avoid those colors, could be another way to prevent a mosquito biting.” …
Without any odor stimulus, mosquitoes largely ignored a dot at the bottom of the chamber, regardless of color. After a spritz of CO2 into the chamber, mosquitos continued to ignore the dot if it were green, blue or purple in color. But if the dot were red, orange, or black, mosquitoes would fly toward it.
— Good News Network: Avoid Mosquito Bites by Ditching These Colors of Clothing This Summer
This wasn’t just a few mosquitoes. The study tracked more than 1.3 million mosquito trajectories and found that they ignore green, blue or purple, and are attracted to red, orange, or black.
Now that we know about colors, who in this group will attract the most mosquitos?
Find out more at Good News Network: Avoid Mosquito Bites by Ditching These Colors of Clothing This Summer, or read the original study at Nature Communications: The olfactory gating of visual preferences to human skin and visible spectra in mosquitoes.
p.s. The study also said: “CO2 induces a strong attraction to specific spectral bands, including those that humans perceive as cyan, orange, and red.” Cyan looks blue-green to me.
(photos and images from Wikimedia Commons; click on the captions to see the originals)
Now I know why I got so many mosquito bites the other day working in the garden. Red shirt!
My theory is that your body chemistry also plays a part — lots of histamine in your body and you must be marked as good feeding material. I also think that one mosquito bite must mark you for others as well. I say this from experience since I attract bug bites like no one else.
Mosquitos rarely bother me. However, I wore a maroon and black plaid shirt at fledge watch and they thought I was delicious. I’ve worn that shirt once since with the same results. Lesson learned!