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Study offers clues into when and why mosquitoes bite

55 points by gmays 8 months ago | 51 comments

htk 8 months ago

Mosquitoes always seem to come exclusively to me instead of my wife. I would love to understand this "preference" but unfortunately the article doesn’t really explain it.

486sx33 8 months ago

Blood type also has an effect

https://ourbloodinstitute.org/blood-matters/mosquitoes-blood...

anvil-on-my-toe 8 months ago

It's either smell, body heat, or easy access to skin. Maybe you sweat more than your wife, or the compounds in your sweat are more attractive to mosquitos, or maybe her hygiene is better.

The smelliest parts of people are the sweat glands and mouth. I pay extra care to my smell when archery hunting by keeping my teeth brushed and using wet wipes on sweaty areas. Eating an apple also helps neutralize mouth odor.

thelittleone 8 months ago

I spent some time in the Peruvian Amazon with local medicine families. In some groups they believe that when mosquitos buzz around the ears, some bodies automatically react by sending blood to the skin in preparation for an immune response (possibly a learned response from a past bite or perhaps inherited). A symptom of that response is goosebumps at the sound of mosquitos.

cortesoft 8 months ago

I always wonder, is it that some people don't get bitten or that some people don't react to getting bitten?

orionsbelt 8 months ago

I’ve literally seen them chase me and avoid others I am with. I also do react and get welts/itchy, but they 100% are also chasing me more than others.

bbarnett 8 months ago

A cabbie told me, he heard certain blood types attract.

grahamj 8 months ago

I think how much they're attracted to you and how much you react to bites are independent. My daughter and I can be in the same place outside for a while and she'll end up with many welts while I have nothing. I do catch them biting me sometimes but she just gets swarmed.

I'm pretty sure as a kid I got a lot more bites. My kid's a teen so I wonder if hormones play a part.

hetspookjee 8 months ago

Definitely seems the case here that hormones play a part. When my wife was pregnant she got 100% of the bites. Now we’re having a son and the bites are even again

pests 8 months ago

The latter for me absolutely.

Mosquitoes have never left any kind of mark or bump or bite on my skin.

I can sometimes feel them biting (injecting? whatever) and I smack/brush them away but that's the most nuisance they cause.

I've always wondered why.

kkylin 8 months ago

Possibly both. I've certainly observed mosquitos biting people who say they don't get bitten -- they just don't notice, which may not be a good thing.

BlarfMcFlarf 8 months ago

I’ve tested my dreaded mosquito tastiness. I always count bites after a hike and compare to others. No one ever comes close.

aeternum 8 months ago

Do you have o blood type?

htk 8 months ago

O+. I didn't know blood type could be a factor, thank you for the tip, I'll look into this.

lolinder 8 months ago

Is there any reason to suppose that blood type plays a role?

It's a big deal for blood transfusion but that doesn't automatically make it relevant to mosquito preferences, and TFA doesn't mention blood type.

boomboomsubban 8 months ago

>Is there any reason to suppose that blood type plays a role?

Yes. https://academic.oup.com/jme/article/41/4/796/885285

Hardly conclusive, but there is some reason to suspect it plays a role.

kergonath 8 months ago

I am skeptical. To figure out the blood type of someone, wouldn’t they need to bite anyway? There are more compelling studies showing effects of CO2 and smells.

euroderf 8 months ago

O+ here and them pesky skeeters ab-so-lootly LUV me. Summer is antihistamine season.

scruple 8 months ago

O- here but I very, very rarely get bitten. My wife is A and gets it very badly.

n8henrie 8 months ago

Wife is O- and is a mosquito magnet that gets huge welts that take ages to go away. I'm A+ and get bites, but they usually don't last long.

pier25 8 months ago

Also O- and it's the other way around for us. Mosquitos hunt me but usually leave my wife alone.

b0dhimind 8 months ago

O+ and they bite me a lot too...

markus_zhang 8 months ago

Me too. BTW I'm A so don't think it is the reason. I also heard that blood sugar plays a hand here, but could also be pseudoscience.

animesh 8 months ago

Just one anecdote as a type 2 person: I cannot prove it scientifically yet, but I did notice that on bad diet days, I get bit more than otherwise.

markus_zhang 8 months ago

I wish there is some study for that, hmmm. I usually keep the same (bad) diet every day so it's kinda hard to test.

simonebrunozzi 8 months ago

I like to joke that the first 10-trillion dollar company will be the company that invents how to effectively deal with mosquitos.

I would happily pay $100/month for life to get rid of the issue. I live in a place with moderate mosquito activity, but it bothers me A LOT. And I lost countless nights sleep over trying to kill a mosquito in my bedroom.

animal531 8 months ago

Don't worry, when you get old your high frequency hearing goes and they no longer bother you while you're sleeping, unless if they decide to go right for the ear.

I'm also quite a snack for them and they seem to love attacking my feet in the evening when I'm at my desk. I can handle one or two bites but somewhere after 3 in a small area it becomes extremely inflamed and itchy.

slowmovintarget 8 months ago

Can confirm on the high-frequency hearing capabilities declining. Kiddo kept complaining that the new Kindle charging docks were squealing when they're plugged in but the Kindle is elsewhere. My wife and I can't hear it, but kiddo can.

acdha 8 months ago

I really wish Intellectual Ventures had been serious about developing the photonic fence two decades ago:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser

No pollution, low risk of impact on other species, and safe to deploy in populated areas sounds really appealing in the era of climate change and invasive species like the tiger mosquitoes which have been changing the game in the United States.

They made a pragmatic decision about cost for malaria prevention in Africa but I strongly share your sentiment and suspect that you could really drive the cost down by developing volume in the western countries where affluent people will pay more for their personal comfort and health than they donate for malaria control on another continent.

Gys 8 months ago

We have special power plugs that evaporate a solution that works 100% for us. Whenever we expect or have mosquitos we switch it on. All disturbance gone in 15 min, even with window and door open. The solution is based on something like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prallethrin

Needs a refill every month or so in Summer.

I assume the vape goes up to the ceiling where the mosquitos also like to be.

latexr 8 months ago

The “Environmental effects” section is worthy of a read, especially if you have pets or care for bees (which you should).

Gys 8 months ago

Thank you, good to be reminded.

We have no pets. I knew it is bad for any insect, not only mosquitos, and we do not like any insects at night in our bedroom.

I assume no bees (outside our house) are effected by our vaporizer if the mosquitos are any indication. In Summer we have them almost every night, even though every opening is closed all the time with mesh and we check regularly for open water inside (plants, toilet) and around the house. Our land also still has bees (but almost no wasps this year).

slowmovintarget 8 months ago

I live in a high-mosquito area as well, and we have to worry about EEE, West Nile, and Zika. I'll be traveling to Mumbai soon, and they're just getting through a wave of Dengue Fever. It's time we as a species dealt with the four species of mosquito (out of hundreds) that bite humans.

slowmovintarget 8 months ago

The actual study for those wanting to read beyond the fluff: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08047-y

The article defluffed: Mosquitoes can taste, and the amino acids in some people's sweat in combination with salt gives stronger cues for biting.

Makes me wonder if hot sauce consumption leads to fewer bites. (Not just slightly tangy ancho chili sauce, I mean sauces like Reaper Squeezins.)

markus_zhang 8 months ago

Good question. But even if it works I'm not sure if I want more bites or more hemorrhoids :D

slowmovintarget 8 months ago

Thankfully, capsaicin doesn't do that. If you already have them, you can feel the, um, down-stream effects, but it won't give you new ones.

markus_zhang 8 months ago

Eh I already have them, and I'm scared of the down-stream effects, haha.

skylanh 8 months ago

The full article is available as the published Nature version care of Yale's Carlson Lab.

Specifically, Baik, L., Talross, G.J.S., Gray, S., Pattisam, H.S., Peterson, T.N., Nidetz, J.E., Hol, F.J.H. and Carlson, J.R. (2024) Mosquito taste responses to human and floral cues guide biting and feeding, Nature https://rdcu.be/dXckk

or maybe you can find it via: https://carlsonlab.yale.edu/full-publication-list

KMag 8 months ago

I'm not very tasty to mosquitos to begin with. I used to have the usual reaction to mosquito bites (slight bump, itching). I grew up near a wetland in Minnesota, so I was no stranger to mosquitos, but after getting absolutely mobbed by mosquitos when I took my wilderness survival merit badge course at scout camp, I stopped reacting to mosquito bites.

Though, the downside is that I do have less incentive to protect myself if I'm in malaria/dengue/etc. areas.

Centigonal 8 months ago

Here is some of more pre-existing research about this topic:

https://www.pfizer.com/news/articles/why_are_some_people_tas...

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8906108/

nwellinghoff 8 months ago

For me I seem to have noticed that if you have thicker body hair you sure get bit less. My gf says “they like me”. No babe, just like me they like your shaved legs.

Seriously though. When they land on my hairy leg they are quickly detected and dispatched.

anonymousiam 8 months ago

I spend most of my time in the western US, and the mosquitos there never bother me, but they do go after my wife and one of my two sons. Aside from being ravaged by a swarm of mosquitos in a Florida phone booth 40 years ago, I never had a problem. That is, until earlier this year when I spent two months in Hawaii. The mosquitos there were relentless and I always had itching bites no matter what brand of repellent, or how much I used.

This article mentions an observed preference to certain people by mosquitos, but it doesn't go into why. It seems to leave out geographical considerations, which I know from experience, are real.

Modified3019 8 months ago

A lot of people don’t realize just how many mosquito (and closely related) species there are, and how few actually go after humans/mammals. Most just go after birds or reptiles/amphibians exclusively.

In the ag fields where I work in the Willamette valley of Oregon, most of what I actually come across during the day are non-biting midges that look like mosquitos. Coming across actual mosquitos during the day is a rare thing because whatever species we have here tend be out during very short seasons or only when it get’s dark. Far different from Michigan or Minnesota imo.

Mind you, you can absolutely find mosquitos if you go out looking for them in the woods.

The very low amount of biting mosquitos that I noticed is actually my big reason for having originally moved here, since bites for me tend to be dime-quarter sized and intensely itch for 2-4 weeks, avoiding mosquitos is a high priority. I’ve yet to find any chemical that adequately deals with the itching, and while heat based solutions like hot water or thermal sticks work they are still only temporary.

Unfortunately, the pollen levels here are a special hell of its own. If you aren’t allergic, you will be. I use a PAPR respirator when out in the early summer during grass pollination.

wrp 8 months ago

I know the Willamette area well. Most people don't realize how quickly pollen levels drop off as you move out of the valley into the Coast or Cascade ranges. It might be worthwhile to relocate a few miles into the hills, and just commute into town when needed.

As for mosquito bites, have you tried hydrogen peroxide? It's supposed to neutralize the protein in the mosquito saliva. I haven't had occasion to test it myself.

prawn 8 months ago

I hiked in the Wind River Range (Wyoming) in July and there were massive swarms of mosquitoes. They'd hang around and generally be annoying but I don't think a single one bit me; we were quite bemused. At home in Australia, one mosquito will absolutely bite and create a far greater annoyance.

anonzzzies 8 months ago

They don't bite me at all, even when i am alone (when someone is with me, they curse my existence as they feel all the focus is on them). I am offended, but also happy.

cranium 8 months ago

It may be a grandma's tale but tick and mosquito preferences seem inversely correlated. My girlfriend is loved by mosquitos but I get ticks more often.

mediumsmart 8 months ago

Is there information in that article? Layout seems to encourage reading between the lines but they seem to be filled with space.

modzu 8 months ago

what about individual differences between mosquitos? some people taste good to me too but not others. it doesn't implicate humanity lol

big-chungus4 8 months ago

That is huge, the mosquitoes are panicking right now