Some people really are “ mosquito magnets” - attracting the pests far more than others - all because they smell better to the insects.
A new study has found that mosquitos actually have their “preference” when it comes to people to snack on and will stay loyal to biting them if they can.
It’s all down to a specific set of acids people produce, and the more someone produces of them, the better smelling they are to mosquitos.
The pests also have their favourite smells and try to return to them.
Study author Leslie Vosshall, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University in New York said: “If you have high levels of this stuff on your skin, you’re going to be the one at the picnic getting all the bites”.
There’s long been folklore about who gets bitten more than whom, but the new study finds it is linked to carboxylic acids.
Humans whose smell contains more of these acids are found to be far more attractive to mosquitos.
These “greasy molecules” are part of the skin’s natural moisturising layer, and people produce them in different amounts.
Healthy bacteria that lives on the skin eats up these acids and plays a role in our skin’s smell profile.
“This property of being a mosquito magnet sticks with you for your whole life—which is either good news or bad news, depending on who you are,” Leslie said.
The research designed an experiment to pit people’s smells against one another to see which mosquitos preferred.
The 64 volunteers wore nylon stockings on their arms to pick up their scent, and these were then loaded into traps with mosquitos then released.
Study author Maria Elena De Obaldia said: “They would basically swarm to the most attractive subjects. It became very obvious right away.”
Scientists let the different smells battle it out until they had a winner and found a striking difference between the most and least attractive smells.
The biggest “mosquito magnet” was around 100 times more attractive to mosquitoes than the last place finisher.
The experiment did just use Aedes aegypti mosquitoes who spread diseases like Yellow Fever, but Leslie said she’d expect similar results from other mosquitoes.
By testing the same people over a number of years the study found that people’s distinctive smells stick around.
But the research could also help boffins come up with a way to repel the pests - by knowing what attracts them, scientists could take steps to keep them away.
