Newsweek: What we wear may motivate mosquitoes to target us

What makes this study important is to determine what colors mosquitoes find attractive, and then we can make ourselves essentially invisible to mosquitoes using optical filters.

A new scientific study indicates that what we wear may help reduce mosquito targeting of us. In a report in the American magazine Newsweek, Nick Mordwank explained that the study led by researchers at the University of Washington concluded that wearing colors such as red, orange and black The cyan attracts mosquitoes to your body.

On the other hand, wearing clothes colored in green, purple, blue and white may deter different types of mosquitoes.

The study , titled "Olfactory gates to human skin visual preferences and mosquito visual spectra," was published February 4 in the journal Nature.

Color Preferences

Previously scientists knew very little about mosquitoes' color preferences in general, Jeffrey Revell, a professor of biology at the University of Washington and lead author of the study, told Newsweek.

He noted the importance of the study for many reasons, including how it "could have very powerful effects" on developing new traps on mosquitoes that carry certain diseases, as well as testing theories on how clothing attracts or repels mosquitoes, and may have color patterns in and around homes. Same effects too. The researchers primarily studied the mosquito species that transmit yellow fever (Aedes aegypti), Aedes aegypti, and Zika.

Revell explained that the ability of mosquitoes to smell carbon dioxide, which humans cannot do, activates their sense of sight. Mosquitoes first smell a potential host and then activate their visual senses to locate said host.

It's similar to humans walking down the street and smelling some kind of food or sweet, he said, causing the individual to look around for the source of the smell - like a bakery.

Carbon, sweat and red color

He noted that what was interesting about the study was that mosquitoes did not pay attention to colors or visible objects, but as soon as we gave them carbon dioxide, it formed a signal from our breath that activated the mosquitoes. Before this study was conducted, he said, the three main cues that attract mosquitoes are human respiration, sweat and skin temperature.

Carbon dioxide travels long distances, including the ability of mosquitoes to smell up to 100 feet away, and mosquitoes' vision isn't as good as ours, but they can start to see us from 20 feet or so, Revell said. As soon as he sees us, he checks us out.

Now, adds Revell, we've learned that the red color in human skin also attracts mosquitoes to humans. These orange-red colors in the skin send a kind of signal to the mosquitoes to detect the host and locate it.

He added that regardless of what redundant systems mosquitoes have, they not only detect us by carbon dioxide but look at us visually for red, and also look for heat or body vapor to perspire.

Implications and future steps

This study was conducted in a very large wind tunnel approximately 8 feet long, 3 feet wide and 3 feet high. About 1.3 million mosquitoes were released into the tunnel, allowing Revell and his companions to mimic the natural environment - providing wind, proper lighting, smell and visual cues.

This study could be used in the future to determine how the signals are combined by mosquitoes, and how different species of them can recognize humans by integrating different signals and identifying genes, Revell said. There is also an aspect of brain integration, which Revell calls "mosquito neuroscience."

"I think what makes this study really important is that we identify the colors that mosquitoes find attractive as we produce them. We can make ourselves essentially invisible to mosquitoes by using these optical filters," he told Newsweek.