Longer days and warmer nights, it’s the perfect recipe for mosquito season. But before you reach for the repellent, did you know that some species of mosquitoes rarely touch a drop of blood, instead favouring flower nectar? Or that mosquitoes only smell with their feet?
Tag: Mosquitoes
Insecticide-Resistant Mosquitoes Prompt New Look at Bed Nets
Modern mosquito bed nets also come with insecticidal compounds embedded into the fibers that keep mosquito populations down. In recent years, however, insecticide-resistant mosquitoes have curtailed the nets’ effectiveness.
Virginia Tech researchers conduct proof-of-concept study on mosquito’s scent preferences
Humans smell. Each and every person has a unique body odor. People have been using commercial products to alter their scent for generations. From soaps to perfumes, people gravitate to floral and fruity smells. Whether we think these smells are good or bad is of little consequence to mosquitoes, transmitters of diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of people each year.
Researchers Create New CRISPR Tools to Help Contain Mosquito Disease Transmission
Scientists have developed a toolkit that helps pave the way to a gene drive designed to stop Culex mosquitoes from spreading disease. Culex mosquitoes spread devastating afflictions stemming from West Nile virus, Japanese encephalitis virus and the pathogen causing avian malaria.
New study reveals how day- and night-biting mosquitoes respond differently to colors of light and time of day
In a new study, researchers found that night- versus day-biting species of mosquitoes are behaviorally attracted and repelled by different colors of light at different times of day. Mosquitoes are among major disease vectors impacting humans and animals around the world and the findings have important implications for using light to control them.
Mosquitoes are drawn to flowers as much as people — and now scientists know why
Scientists have identified the chemical cues in flowers that stimulate mosquitoes’ sense of smell and draw them in. Their findings show how cues from flowers can stimulate the mosquito brain as much as a warm-blooded host — information that could help develop less toxic repellents and better traps.
Mosquitoes more likely to lay eggs in closely spaced habitats
Patches of standing water that are close together are more likely to be used by mosquitoes to lay eggs in than patches that are farther apart, according to a new study from the University of Georgia.