Our exposed skin, in addition to smell and breath, acts as a kind of neon sign advertising to mosquitoes. That’s because mosquitoes use infrared sensing in their antennae to track down their prey, a new study has found.
In many parts of the world, mosquito bites are more than an irritation, capable of spreading pathogens like dengue, yellow fever, and Zika virus. Malaria, spread by the Anopheles of gambiae mosquito, caused more than 600,000 deaths in 2022, according to World Health Organisation statistics.
“Despite their diminutive size, mosquitoes are responsible for more human deaths any other animal,” Debeaubien said.
Research led by scientists from the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) found that mosquitoes use infrared detection along with other cues we already know about, like a nose for the carbon dioxide in our breath, and certain body odour to seek out hosts.
“The mosquito we study, Aedes aegypti, is exceptionally skilled at finding human hosts,” says UCSB molecular biologist Nicholas Debeaubien.
