The reason why, according to researchers at The Rockefeller University in New York, may be hidden in our skin. A female mosquito can find you by tracking your CO2 exhalations, body heat and body odour.
Yet Leslie Vosshall, head of Rockefeller’s Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behaviour, has found that individual odour variations connected to skin microbiota are what make you more of a mosquito magnet or not.
Vosshall’s study found that high levels of certain fatty acids – known has carboxylic acids – emanating from the skin may create a heady perfume that mosquitoes can’t resist.
These fatty acids are in the sebum and are used by bacteria on our skin to produce our unique human body odour.
So until someone works out how to alter how the bacteria interacts with the sebum, keep the insect repellent close by.
