Experts have been studying what mosquitoes fly to for many years. During the experiments, they found out that insects are attracted to infrared light, heat, natural body odor, and a certain color. Mosquitoes sense the victim, being at a distance of several tens of meters from it. The hunting strategy of mosquitoes consists of 3 stages - they determine the presence of a potential prey by the smell of carbon dioxide at a distance of 5 m, search visually - they see within 15 m, and set precise landmarks by the emitted heat.
Plants against bloodsuckers
Some of our potty experiments are very mosquito-friendly, so indoor decoration can double as protection. They don't like the smell of geranium, so feel free to grow it on your windowsills. At a minimum, only the hungriest will fly through the window. Lemongrass, basil and mint are also your saviors.
If you don’t like geranium yourself, then choose lilac or bird cherry, elderberry or marigold. These plants can give you a wonderful aroma and survive flying bloodsuckers. Excellent folk remedies that will not kill a mosquito, but can be kept at a distance.
Homemade fumigators and traps
There is another way to temporarily forget about the existence of mosquitoes. Cut a lemon or orange in half, inserting about a dozen clove buds into each half. This fragrant and, most importantly, harmless fumigator will allow you to sleep peacefully even with an open window.
You can make a mosquito trap from scrap materials. Take a regular plastic bottle, cut it into two parts so that the neck is slightly shorter than the base. Pour a glass of hot water into it, add 50 grams of sugar and a spoonful of yeast.
Read also: How to write “shol” or “shel”
Stir and insert the funnel formed from the neck into the base so that it does not touch the water. Wrap the structure in paper or cardboard. Such a simple and effective device can be made together with your child, at the same time teaching him a lesson in chemistry and cooking.
Yeast dough releases carbon dioxide during fermentation, which attracts insects. But they can’t get back out.
An elegant, I would even say, designer mosquito repeller can be made as follows.
Take four glass jars, place two branches of rosemary inside each, and cover them with a few slices of lemon. Pour plain water, filling the jars three-quarters full.
Add ten drops of your favorite essential oil (e.g. peppermint, lavender, cedarwood) to each container. Add a little more water. Place floating candles there, light them - you are guaranteed a romantic evening without unnecessary squeaking bloodsuckers! The fluid must be changed weekly.
Mosquito Facts You Need to Know
Nobody likes mosquitoes. In fact, these insects are human enemy number one, and all because they carry dangerous diseases. While we can't destroy them all worldwide, there are options to deal with them locally.
Using technology, repellents, insecticides and good old common sense, you can keep these pests away from your family and pets, and prevent the spread of diseases that mosquitoes can carry.
Let's take a closer look at these insects, perhaps you will learn something about them that you had no idea about!
The first stage of the hunt - mosquitoes fly to the smell
It is known that a mosquito can smell its “prey” at a distance of up to 50 meters, especially if the person emits a lot of carbon dioxide. Definitely, mosquitoes fly to carbon dioxide, which has been confirmed by numerous experiments.
Large people, pregnant women and those who exercise outdoors emit a lot of carbon dioxide. As they fly closer, other odors become the determining factor for insects. Mosquitoes are attracted to people who have an excessive concentration of cholesterol or steroids on their skin surface. Entomologists say that bloodsuckers are attracted to uric acid if it is produced in excess by the body. Insects like people with diabetes, all because mosquitoes like the air they exhale, which smells of acetone and estradiol.
Mosquitoes will notice the smell of alcohol and sweat. Yes, mosquitoes fly on sweat. The more you sweat, the more likely it is that you will be bitten and not your neighbor. Along with sweat, uric and lactic acid and ammonia are released.
Japanese researchers found that a person who drank a bottle of beer was more attractive to mosquitoes than someone who did not drink alcohol.
What do mosquitoes fly to when they bite? First of all, they use a chemical analyzer to look at carbon dioxide and odor. If you want to deceive them by confusing them with the strong smell of perfume, then you will fail. But a person who has just taken a bath or got out of the shower is less attractive from a mosquito’s point of view.
However, perfume with the scent of vanilla, lavender, and eucalyptus will repel mosquitoes. They don't like the smell of smoke either.
For the proboscis
Some craftsmen claim that if you sharply stretch the skin in the place where a mosquito is gnawing, it will be “caught by the nose”, will not be able to escape and will burst from the pressure of drinking the blood. This method requires great dexterity and experience.
We hope that our tips on how to catch a mosquito in a room will be useful to you.
To the question: What does a mosquito fly to: light, smell or heat? asked by the author Elena the best answer is that the MOSQUITO chooses its victim not by taste, but by smell
It also doesn’t matter to him what your blood type is. To begin with, he is attracted by the release of carbon dioxide during breathing, this is a signal: there is a “feeder” nearby
Exploratory planning over a peacefully sleeping person allows you to sniff out further important information: to bite him or not to bite him. First, the body must be warm. Mosquitoes, you know, like it hot. Particularly attractive to arrogant bloodsuckers is the smell of sweat, in particular one of its components - lactic acid, the concentration of which varies from person to person. According to some reports, mosquitoes are partial to those who smell of hair conditioner or certain medications, such as heart medications. And also alcohol. However, it is possible that it is simply more convenient for mosquitoes to have a feast on a drunk body: they sleep on themselves, itch if they want, bite if they want, they still don’t feel anything. Accordingly, in the morning there is no living place on it from bites. According to S. Chaika, Deputy Head of the Department of Entomology, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University, in people with white sensitive skin, especially women and children, the reaction to bites is more pronounced, which is why it seems that they are bitten more. Experiments by foreign scientists, the purpose of which was to find out what mosquitoes, on the contrary, do not like it, confirmed what has long been known: this is the smell of anise, cloves, camphor oil, eucalyptus, garlic, incense, lavender, tobacco smoke and smoke in general, for example from a fire. Observations indicating that mosquitoes cannot tolerate yellow remain questionable and so far unexplained. As for the presence of sugar in the blood, and especially the diagnosis of diabetes based on the preferences of mosquitoes for individuals, science knows nothing about this at the moment. Mosquitoes actually flock to people with malaria more often. And also for those who have more B vitamins in their blood. But mosquitoes do not want to bite people who take medications that lower cholesterol levels. But they determine this not by taste, but by smell.
Reply from Skip
But they don't bite me. I read the articles, and now I don’t know whether to be happy or sad...
Answer from Neurologist
to the carbon dioxide released
Reply from Victoria
A mosquito flies, hungry to death, there is no one around: no animals, no people, ..thinks: “Damn, I’m going to die: -(((“. Then a vampire flies towards him, his whole face is covered in blood... the mosquito asks him where you are , they say, I grabbed so much blood... I, supposedly, am also a vampire, share. And the ghoul answers him: “Do you see that tower?” - “Uh-huh.” “... but I didn’t notice it...”
Reply from Kolosok
If there was light, all the mosquitoes would sit under light bulbs and lanterns; if there was the smell of blood, then all the mosquitoes would sit on the bodies of animals or human bodies (for example, a drunk with a broken nose). The only version left is to warm up. Mosquitoes appear only with the onset of very warm days.
Reply from Valens
Mosquitoes detect their victims by infrared radiation, that is, the heat emanating from a person or animal, the concentration of carbon dioxide and the smell of sweat in the summer. Mosquitoes are able to drink from 1 to 1.5 liters of blood from one reindeer, so animals are forced to move to the north, where mosquitoes do not active Mosquitoes have surprisingly adapted to life in the city: here they are active not only in summer, but also in winter, breeding in warm basements and sewers
Answer from Evil Bandera
for sperm
Answer from Anatolij drozd
for blood
Answer from Pavel Yuminov
For warmth. If in the evening or at night they fly towards the light, then this is also heat emitted by the light bulb. Mosquitoes cannot detect odors. They determine the presence of blood first by a certain temperature of surrounding objects, then sit down and feel with their trunk.
Reply from Yoakura
on people and animals
Reply from BLACK RAVEN
Mother Teresa, why are you confusing people??!! They fly to heat first of all, so with the help of reflectors the mosquito finds its “victim”
Experts have been studying what mosquitoes fly to for many years. During the experiments, they found out that insects are attracted to infrared light, heat, natural body odor, and a certain color. sense the victim, being at a distance of several tens of meters from it. The hunting strategy of mosquitoes consists of 3 stages - they determine the presence of a potential prey by the smell of carbon dioxide at a distance of 5 m, search visually - they see within 15 m, and set precise landmarks by the emitted heat.
Mosquito attractants
A lot has been created:
- A water trap is distinguished by the presence of an open tray with water. After all, it is in water that female mosquitoes usually lay their eggs. Therefore, it is enough to periodically add and replace water, disposing of caught insects.
- kill mosquitoes using an ultraviolet lamp, the light and heat of which attracts them. It is equipped with a built-in grid to which voltage is supplied. As soon as the insect touches it, it dies from a discharge of electric current.
- The propane trap is intended for outdoor use only. It works by releasing CO2 and special lures that imitate the smell of human sweat. One of these devices is.
Many craftsmen make it using plastic bottles or paper soaked in a mixture of rosin, linseed oil and honey. Safety and accessibility are the main advantages of such devices.
How to kill mosquitoes at home, at night, when you are almost falling asleep and don’t want to disturb your household? The situation is very unpleasant, because the mosquito has disturbed your sleep, bitten you painfully, and even the site of the bite itches. And if there are small children in the house, then night bites can be a serious problem, because the child cannot sleep, cries, and in the morning all exposed parts of the body are swollen and red. This is the best case scenario if the child does not have allergies. We hope you find our tips on how to properly kill a mosquito helpful.
How to protect yourself?
If you are not so lucky, then it is advisable to stock up on mosquito bite repellents. We will not list the mass of modern drugs and devices sold in pharmacies and special retail outlets, but will focus on the simplest and absolutely harmless mosquito repellents:
- Apply a mixture of eucalyptus and lemon aroma oil (1 jar of oil + juice from two lemons) to exposed areas of the body, and you are protected;
- natural cinnamon. Just rub it on your skin or add it to eau de toilette;
- garlic. Eating this product daily will greatly reduce the risk of being bitten;
- vanillin or vanilla sugar amazingly repels insects;
- fan. Just position yourself near a running fan, and no mosquito will be afraid of you.
Using our simple tips, you can easily protect yourself from the invasion of flying parasites.
Why do mosquitoes feed on blood?
Female mosquitoes bite into the skin until it bleeds so that their eggs can mature. Mosquitoes drink blood - but this process has nothing to do with the function of nutrition, simply without consuming blood, food rich in proteins, mosquitoes cannot reproduce. Proteins contained in plasma (the liquid part of the blood) and red blood cells are digested in the intestines of the female mosquito, and the resulting amino acids are used to synthesize the proteins of her eggs.
3–4 days after hatching from their pupae, female mosquitoes mate with males. Fertilized females search for their victims. After drinking blood, females digest it within 2–3 days. During this time, eggs mature in their ovaries, and then the female finds a suitable body of water and lays eggs on the surface of the water.
A certain percentage of females then die, and the survivors can drink blood again and only after that lay a new batch of eggs. Male mosquitoes do not drink blood at all. In order to obtain energy, mosquitoes of both sexes feed on plant nectar - in the same way as “noble” bees.
Some people smell especially attractive to mosquitoes
Mosquitoes are nocturnal creatures, so light is not attractive to them; on the contrary, it is very annoying to them. It is for this reason that when we turn on the light they “disappear”.
The light irritates them so much that they even “restrict their diet” while it is on. This is what Willem Takken of Wageningen University in the Netherlands has discovered over years of research.
On the other hand, it is widely believed that you are often bitten by these creatures because you have “sweet blood.” While some people's blood is literally no sweeter, a mosquito's blood tastes very different. If the victim smells and tastes particularly good, it may happen that he will be attacked before the person nearby.
What does life expectancy depend on?
In laboratory conditions, female mosquitoes live up to 120 days, males - 2 times less.
Such a difference in life expectancy between insects of the same species has no explanation. In laboratories, mosquitoes live longer than in the wild, since they have adequate nutrition and optimal temperature conditions. There is no exact data on how long they live in natural conditions.
Scientists have found that the life of a mosquito is influenced by the following factors:
- Air temperature. Insects do not tolerate hot weather well. The cooler it is in the house or outside, the longer their life. At air temperatures above +25 ºC, mosquitoes live up to 42 days, at +10 ºC up to 120.
- Frequent meals. To live long, male mosquitoes must regularly receive food in the form of nectar, and females must obtain blood. In forests and other uninhabited areas, mosquitoes live less because they do not find suitable food for themselves.
- Weather. Mosquitoes live longer and reproduce better in calm, windless weather. Frequent downpours, strong winds, heat, and sudden temperature changes shorten the life of insects and destroy their offspring.
If mosquitoes appear in late summer or early autumn, they hibernate before the onset of winter. In the spring they wake up, live and reproduce for another 1-2 months.
What attracts insects to your apartment?
Most often, mosquitoes enter a person’s home by accident, for example, by flying into an open window or a wide open door. But it also happens that an insect flies into a room on purpose. This can happen when it gets cold outside. Then mosquitoes look for more comfortable conditions. A hungry female may be attracted by the scent of the prey. Sometimes mosquitoes fly into a room by smelling the smell of sweat or carbon dioxide.
Swarm of mosquitoes
Features of the aerodynamics of a mosquito
In the process of studying the life activity of mosquitoes and, in particular, the specifics of their flight, scientists found out several interesting facts:
- the wingspan during flight is about 40⁰, which is less than that of other insects;
- the frequency of flapping reaches 700–800 per second, which is 3-4 times more than that of other insects similar in size to mosquitoes.
Another distinctive feature is that after each flap, mosquito wings make a turn, which is why peculiar air currents are created around the insect.
At what altitude do mosquitoes fly?
It is a fairly popular opinion that the flight height of a mosquito does not exceed 12–15 m. However, these data are very conditional. The height to which an insect can rise depends on several factors. To which floor mosquitoes fly depends on the speed and direction of the wind, air temperature, and atmospheric pressure.
In practice, bloodsuckers can be found in apartments on both the 3rd and 9th floors.
Where do mosquitoes come from in an apartment?
Despite the fact that female mosquitoes feed on the blood of people, insects prefer to live in the natural environment. However, meeting them in an apartment, and even more so in a country house, is a common occurrence. So where do mosquitoes come from in a human home:
- from the street;
- from neighboring premises;
- from the stairwell, from the garbage chute.
In addition, blood-sucking insects are common inhabitants of the basements of many private and multi-storey buildings, where they are attracted by warmth and dampness. From there, they easily penetrate into living spaces through ventilation.
Gender preferences
There is information on the Internet that insects choose representatives of the fair sex, because men have rougher skin. Men are more exposed to physical activity, so they emit a strong lactic acid aroma. Most often, mosquitoes bite women, as well as men who play sports in the evening. Blood-sucking individuals are guided by the presence of carbon dioxide. Children have a small lung capacity, which is why they take in less carbon dioxide.
When determining why blood-sucking mosquitoes bite some people more and others less, body temperature must also be taken into account. In children it is slightly higher than in adults. Therefore, the mosquito bites the child more often. Parents who go on vacation with their children should remember this.
What Attracts Mosquitoes
A summer walk in a forested area is inevitable without mosquito bites, but there are people who are more attractive to bloodsuckers, and those who are practically not bitten. Those who have suffered from their “deliciousness” inevitably ask the question: what attracts mosquitoes?
How mosquitoes find a person from a distance
Finding a victim to bite is the task of only the female mosquito. The insect needs protein and iron to breed offspring, so the search for a warm-blooded donor is refined to the smallest detail. A mosquito can notice an animal or person following the CO2 trail from as early as 50 meters and change the direction of flight towards the future victim. Inhaled gas is the main bait for bloodsuckers.
Mosquitoes' sense of smell is also excellent: the parasite smells sweat, perfume, and even determines by smell what bacteria are present on the skin. Vision is secondary for the insect, but the female considers moving objects first. Their body temperature is higher, so bloodsuckers choose large, mobile victims more often.
What attracts insects to humans?
The victim of a mosquito can be any warm-blooded animal, but it is people who cause the greatest stir. Human blood is not unique in composition, which means there are other reasons:
- the smell of blood. It comes from previously combed bites, abrasions, scratches;
thermal radiation is more intense during movement, but quite noticeable even at rest. Mosquitoes fly to warmth at night;
carbon dioxide concentration. A person exhales carbon dioxide and also produces it during the combustion of fuel. A mosquito may fly toward a highway, attracted by the CO2 plume;
the smell of sweat, especially fresh sweat, is attractive to bloodsuckers, who receive a signal from afar about tasty prey;
bacteria on the skin - the same ones that feed on sweat and sebum, also have their own specific odors. A person feels them only in high concentrations, but literally a few aromatic molecules are enough for a mosquito;
the smell of beer, or rather, hops, is very attractive to mosquitoes of both sexes, and since the female feeds not only on blood, but also on nectar, she will fly much more willingly to the combination of smells of hops, sweat and fermentation;
Person search algorithm
Considering all of the above, we can derive an algorithm for finding a victim of a mosquito bite:
- the insect is guided by the smell of carbon dioxide, sweat and other aromas emanating from a person and attractive to leeches from a distance of up to 50 m;
- approaching 5-15 m, the insect visually determines the location of the future food source;
- Having flown even closer (about 1 m), the leech finds the victim from the heat emanating from the body.
This tactic is paying off. Mosquitoes easily find victims, even if they try to hide under a blanket. So, if a person suddenly wakes up in the middle of the night, hears a characteristic squeak, and then it seems that someone is biting an exposed part of his body, most likely the insect is already actively saturated with blood.
What happens if you kill all mosquitoes?
Of course, it happens that the most popular rhetorical question of the summer season is will it end? When you try unsuccessfully to fall asleep to the annoying squeak of insects.
Lowest link in the food chain
If the flies were destroyed, every single one, an ecological catastrophe would occur. With mosquitoes the situation is not entirely clear.
What are the consequences of killing these insects?
The diversity of this species of insect family makes them different from each other. If the goal is to destroy these creatures, then it is most likely to destroy the bloodsucking ones. Because the rest are not our enemies.
But their disappearance is mistakenly considered uncritical
.
What happens if you kill all mosquitoes? There will be more candidates for our blood among horseflies, midges, ticks, and various leeches.
Urbanization
The African and Asian population will increase sharply and begin to populate forests and swamp wildernesses, where mosquitoes did not allow humans. For this reason, the flora and fauna of these places will suffer, because they will begin to be destroyed by settlers.
On your marks
The experiment begins: Lyudmila Ganushkina releases 470 hungry females of Aedes aegypti into the wild (only female mosquitoes drink blood, they need it for nutrition and breeding, males feed on nectar), we start the stopwatch, and the traps begin their bloody harvest. Electrofrog crackles quietly. “These are mosquitoes that fly through the energized mesh and are killed by a discharge,” explains Sergei Kozhurin, one of the Electrofrog developers. “Although they still won’t be able to fly back.” Both traps are designed to “cause fire on yourself” and in 10-14 days gradually destroy (or significantly reduce) the mosquito population in an open area (for example, on a summer cottage) of approximately 50 acres.
The Russian Electrofrog trap (on the right in the photo) attracts insects with a combination of heat (the surface heats up to 36-40 degrees Celsius), carbon dioxide and octenol. The fan sucks insects through a metal mesh that is energized, so that the mosquitoes end up in the storage mesh already killed. The light sensor turns off the system in bright daylight (mosquitoes are usually not active at this time). Mosquito Magnet Independence (left in the photo) attracts mosquitoes using octenol (or other attractants), and also simulates breathing and heat by catalytically burning propane to release carbon dioxide. The suction fan is battery-powered, so the trap does not require an electrical connection.
The final
After an hour and a half, we return to the insectarium to net the traps with prey, living and dead, mixed together. Mosquitoes in nets are suppressed with ether, and then considered the most reliable method - manually. The final score of the Russia-USA match is 167: 61 in favor of Electrofrog. A confident victory, though only in laboratory conditions. However, in the next version, Russian developers promise to improve something else so that the result is even higher. Meanwhile, the remaining 242 angry and hungry clovers must be caught after the match at odd times.
The Disinfection Research Institute of Rospotrebnadzor tested the effectiveness and safety of mosquito repellents for humans. Test results showed that not all people
The Disinfection Research Institute of Rospotrebnadzor tested the effectiveness and safety of mosquito repellents for humans. Test results showed that mosquito repellent lotions or creams are not suitable for everyone. Absolutely all of them are contraindicated for infants, and can cause an allergic reaction in an adult.
This season's hits include an electric mosquito trap lamp, an ultrasonic repellent you can carry in your pocket, mosquito repellent bracelets for babies, and citronella candles and coils.
Scare the smell
All preparations containing certain essential oils have a mosquito repellent effect. For example, clove, eucalyptus and lemongrass oils have a repellent effect.
Candles or spirals infused with lemongrass oil are recommended for both home and garden use. Candle or spiral burns that emit the scent of mosquito repellent. These agents last four to eight hours until the oils are completely dry. These “bitches” from Ceylon cost from 50 to 200 rubles apiece.
According to experts, these odors help for a short time and can be dangerous to human health. Consequently, the smell of essential oils can cause allergies, headaches, coughs and skin rashes in a person. But essential oils have little effect on mosquitoes.
Special bracelets have appeared on sale that can repel mosquitoes. Their popularity has grown due to the fact that they are not contraindicated for infants and can be used by a one-year-old baby. Other remedies and mosquito repellent ointments are contraindicated for children. According to sellers, such a bracelet can cause allergies only in very rare cases. Bracelets for little ones are available in two colors: pink for girls and blue for boys. They are soaked in a herbal extract that acts as a mosquito repellent. The mosquito repellent bracelet can be worn on your wrist or hung on your stroller. The service life of the bracelet is 120-170 hours, the price is about 300 rubles.
However, mosquito repellent bracelets for children under one year of age are not registered with Rospotrebnadzor. Experts believe that if the product already has a very strong smell, it can harm the baby, in particular, cause an allergic reaction.
However, today manufacturers offer not only products that emit an odor that repels both mosquitoes and humans. There are products on sale that have virtually no odor. They contain insecticides - synthetic substances that kill mosquitoes. When exposed to insecticides, insects cause paralysis. Products containing insecticides are more effective than those containing natural ingredients. In an apartment or in a country house, these products really help a lot, but in the open air, insecticides instantly evaporate, so one hundred percent protection against mosquitoes on the street will not work.
Scare with sound
They have learned to scare mosquitoes not only with smell, but also with sound. An ultrasonic repellent has appeared on sale, which makes a sound that repels mosquitoes, but humans cannot hear it. The cost of this device in the form of a keychain varies from 500 to 1000 rubles, depending on the area of its influence. Some manufacturers of ultrasonic decoys promise that a mosquito will not fly within five feet of you, while others guarantee a safe flight range of 100 feet.
According to the results of an examination by the Research Institute of Disinfection, ultrasonic repellents do not act on mosquitoes.
Magic lamp
The hit of the season is the trap lamp. The principle of operation of this lamp is simple: the ultraviolet radiation of the lamp attracts insects and, flying towards the lamp, a mosquito under a voltage of 650 volts falls into a metal mesh and dies from the current discharge. This device should also protect customers from flies and moths within a radius of 30 to 100 meters and fight moths in the apartment. A trap lamp costs from 1000 to 8000 rubles.
However, in the laboratory of the Research Institute of Disinfection it was found that trap lamps attract mosquitoes, since flies or butterflies fly only towards the light. Mosquitoes fly in the heat.
The most important thing is that neither lamps nor ultrasonic repellents are registered with Rospotrebnadzor and their sale is illegal. According to Rospotrebnadzor specialists, the manufacturer initially deceives the buyer by promising to rid him of mosquitoes with the help of such a lamp or repellent.
Experts advise buyers to trust not the words of sellers, but documents confirming that the product has passed the appropriate test. Its state registration number must be indicated on the product. At the same time, the registration number also does not ensure 100% effectiveness and safety.
It turns out that only in laboratory conditions can it be confirmed that mosquito repellents are safe for humans and to some extent repel mosquitoes or kill at least some of them.
Based on materials from the weekly magazine “You’re Right”
Mosquitoes are not attracted to LED lights; mosquitoes and midges fly towards fluorescent lamps and other sources of ultraviolet light. Light emitting diodes (LEDs) do not emit ultraviolet radiation, so mosquitoes will not fly towards them. This preference by mosquitoes makes LED lights ideal for human use outdoors.
