How Mosquitoes Sniff Out Human Sweat To Find Us

Female mosquitoes searching for a meal of blood detect people partly by using a special olfactory receptor to home in on our sweat. Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images

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Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images

Female mosquitoes searching for a meal of blood detect people partly by using a special olfactory receptor to home in on our sweat. “We found a receptor for human sweat, and we found that acidic volatiles that come off of us are really key for mosquitoes to find us,” says Matthew DeGennaro, a neurogeneticist at Florida International University in Miami.

Source: www.npr.org