Why do mosquitoes bite some people more than others?

Are you a mosquito magnet?

Have you ever come back from a summer hike to find yourself full of mosquito bites while your friends claim they don’t have any? Do you feel like a mosquito magnet? There might be a scientific explanation for that.

20% of people are irresistible to mosquitoes

Studies have shown that around 20% of people are particularly irresistible to mosquitoes, which is why they get bitten more often than others. There’s a lot of factors that could play a role in this. Here are some of them:

Blood type

It is not surprising that our blood type can make us less or more attractive to mosquitoes, as they bite us to harvest protein from our blood. However, they find certain blood types more appetizing than others.

Type O blood more prone to mosquito bites

One study found that mosquitoes bite people with Type O blood nearly twice as often as those with Type A. People with Type B blood fell somewhere in the middle of this itchy spectrum.

How can mosquitoes smell our blood type?

About 85% of people secrete a chemical signal through their skin that indicates which blood type they have, while 15% don’t. The study showed that mosquitoes are also more attracted to secretors than nonsecretors regardless of which blood type they are.

Carbon dioxide

One of the ways mosquitoes locate their targets is by smelling the carbon dioxide emitted in their breath. They use an organ called a maxillary palp to do this, and can detect carbon dioxide from as far as 164 feet away.

Why children get bitten less often

As a result, people who exhale more carbon dioxide, generally, larger people, have been shown to attract more mosquitoes than others. This is why children normally get bitten less often than adults.

Pregnancy

Studies show that pregnant women attract roughly twice as many mosquito bites as others. This might be due to the fact that they have a higher body temperature than normal and they exhale 21% more carbon dioxide than others.

Exercise

Mosquitoes also find victims by smelling lactic acid, uric acid, and other substances expelled through our sweat, and are also attracted to higher body temperatures, which is why they might find you irresistible when you’re exercising.

Skin bacteria

Other research has suggested that the particular types and volume of bacteria that naturally live on human skin affect our attractiveness to mosquitoes.

Why mosquitoes like to bite our ankles and feet

The fact that mosquitoes are attracted to the volume of bacteria in our skin might be why they are especially prone to biting our ankles and feet, as they naturally have more robust bacteria colonies than other parts of our body.

Drinking beer

According to a study published in PubMed, just a single 12-ounce bottle of beer can make you more attractive to mosquitoes. However, it is still a mystery why they’re attracted to drinkers.

A scientific mystery

While some researchers suspected this was because drinking increases the amount of ethanol excreted in sweat, or because it increases body temperature, neither of these factors were found to correlate with mosquito landings on drinkers.

Clothing color

Along with scent, mosquitoes use vision to locate people, which is why wearing certain colors may make you easier to find

Black, dark blue or red

According to James Day, a medical entomologist at the University of Florida, colors such as black, dark blue or red might make you an easier target for mosquitoes.

Genetics

However, the most important factor determining how often we get bit by mosquitoes, is genetics, which accounts for 85% of the variability between people and their attractiveness to mosquitoes.

Next generation repellant

Unfortunately, we cannot modify our genes, but researchers are already looking at the reasons why a minority of people seem to rarely attract mosquitoes in the hopes of creating the next generation of insect repellant