Science

Mosquito Vision Tailored to Our Skin, Researchers Find

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are a public health scourge. Understanding how they home in on us could help develop traps and give people new tools to prevent being bitten

FILE-Photo of young woman scratching the itch on her arm.
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In a paper published Friday in the journal Nature Communications, a professor of biology at the University of Washington, Jeff Riffell, who led a research group examining what attracts the pesky insects to people. The team examined mosquito vision, finding in a series of experiments that the insects were attracted to certain colors, including red and orange. 

In one experiment, researchers set up a wind tunnel that allowed the mosquitoes to fly freely as an array of video cameras recorded their every move. 

“When you stimulated them and gave them a little puff of CO2 and there was a red cue, they would go to it and be attracted to it,” Riffell said. “These are the same colors reflected from your skin.” 

The smell of carbon dioxide — the gas we exhale — triggers mosquitoes’ vision. 

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are a public health scourge that infect people with diseases like yellow fever, dengue fever, West Nile and Zika.

Scientists used "gene-editing" technology to disable the light receptors in the eyes of the aedes aegypti mosquito, an invasive species in much of the world that can carry diseases. UC Santa Barbara professor Craig Montell talks about the research that made mosquitoes unable to detect humans.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com.

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