News Animals

Why mosquitoes are especially good at smelling you

Hiding human odor from the bloodsucking insects is harder than we thought

A close-up of an Aedes aegypti mosquito

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes have redundant ways of detecting human smells, making the insects’ attraction to us hard to break, a study suggests.

Joao Paulo Burini/Moment/Getty Images

By Erin Garcia de Jesús

- More than 2 years ago

Some mosquitoes have a near-foolproof thirst for human blood. Previous attempts to prevent the insects from tracking people down by blocking part of mosquitoes’ ability to smell have failed.