N
Story
Study offers clues into when and why mosquitoes bite
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.

  • htk
  • ·
  • 4 hours 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.
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.
I always wonder, is it that some people don't get bitten or that some people don't react to getting bitten?
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.
A cabbie told me, he heard certain blood types attract.
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.

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
  • ·
  • 3 hours ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
  • pests
  • ·
  • 4 hours 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.

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.
Do you have o blood type?
  • htk
  • ·
  • 4 hours ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
O+. I didn't know blood type could be a factor, thank you for the tip, I'll look into this.
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.

>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.

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.
O- here but I very, very rarely get bitten. My wife is A and gets it very badly.
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.
Also O- and it's the other way around for us. Mosquitos hunt me but usually leave my wife alone.
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.
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.
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

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.
  • KMag
  • ·
  • 4 hours 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.

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/

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.

  • prawn
  • ·
  • 3 hours 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.
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.
Is there information in that article? Layout seems to encourage reading between the lines but they seem to be filled with space.
  • modzu
  • ·
  • 4 hours ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
what about individual differences between mosquitos? some people taste good to me too but not others. it doesn't implicate humanity lol