other discussions
 

We are biology researchers who study mosquito behavior, and we recently discovered that mosquitoes can be picky about their favorite food – that is, human blood.

Learning what attracts these mosquitoes could be useful to designing repellents that deter them from biting people and reducing the local populations of mosquitoes that spread disease. And understanding why the living community of microbes on our skin appeals to mosquitoes could help in the development of probiotic mosquito repellents.