Mosquitoes are undoubtedly one of the most annoying and, above all, dangerous insects in the world. In fact, contrary to what many people think, female mosquitoes, They are the animals that kill the most people in the world.
This is due to, first, how many mosquitoes are there in the world; second, that are vectors of deadly diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, etc.; and, third, they are animals that above all thrive in poor sanitary environmentsso it is easier for people to die from this type of disease.
A study has recently come out that can help us understand the behavior of mosquitoes or, at least, of one species, the Aedes aegypti, which is one of the most dangerous since it is a vector of diseases as lethal as the dengue, zika or yellow fever and it is specific in humans, that is, they do not attack animals.
Mosquitoes are known to be attracted to both olfactory and visual stimuli. An example of an olfactory stimulus is CO2 that, despite the fact that for us it is an odorless gas (that is, we do not smell it), mosquitoes are attracted to this gas that we exhale.
Regarding visual stimuli, it seems that red, orange, black colors (hence the color black is normally the color of the traps) and the cyan They are the ones that attract them the most. Nonetheless, There seems to be controversy regarding the studies since some have shown specific preferences for blue, only for green-yellow in other studies, and for red in others, so Some more research needs to be done.
It seems that there are also other signals such as heat, water vapor, volatile substances from the skin, etc., that mediate the behaviors of mosquitoes to land and bite.
what the study says
As for the study, what the researchers did was examine olfactory and visual search behavior in mosquitoes in a large wind tunnel containing 450 mosquitoes, equipped with a real-time monitoring of 16 cameras to monitor and quantify the behavior of mosquitoes.
During exposure to filtered air, mosquitoes exhibited random behavior toward the odor source and visual objects, and they spent much of their time exploring the ceiling and walls of the tunnel, rarely investigating visual objects.
On the contrary, after exposure to a column of CO2, the number of flying mosquitoes more than doubled. During that time, the mosquitoes spent most of their time in the CO2 column. Also, this gas triggered an attraction to visual objectsespecially for those red and orange.
To examine whether this mosquito species exhibited preferences for human skin color, color cards with cosmetic purposes to even out skin tones. As with the previous experiment, they were only attracted to the color of the human skin tone. when there was CO2 involvedsince without CO2, there was no attraction.
The researchers conclude that the most important means by which mosquitoes navigate is by smell or, at least, this species of mosquito. For this reason, the researchers They ask that the results be interpreted with caution. and they are not extrapolated to the rest of the species.
Even so, this study can help us to fight against these unpleasant and dangerous insects.
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