How often, especially at this time, do you wonder why that is? mosquitoes They sting some people and not others, maybe all in the same place. The answer exists and it’s not that complicated. In fact, only female mosquitoes are known to bite humans. Scientists have been studying their behavior and habits for years and recently found that no matter how hard humans try to avoid their olfactory system, mosquitoes have evolved “superfluous security systems” that are able to bypass these shields and still pass on the particular smell recognize who attracts them.
The discovery was published in the journal cell and is mainly related to mosquitoes of the species Aedes aegypti. These particular insects can be quite dangerous due to the diseases they carry, which cause the deaths of nearly 800,000 people worldwide each year. The perception of finding more and more of them is not just a psychological factor, as it has been proven that their numbers are in steady increase in recent years.
Scientists have found that mosquitoes are attracted to a mix of substances like carbon dioxide and body perfume. This mixture influences the mosquito via the receptors on the antennae and lures it to the target. Scholars have also tried to inhibit this receptors but deprived of their “radar”, they still managed to identify the human to be stung. The scientists therefore deepened the study and found that each olfactory neuron is equipped with multiple receptors aimed at absorbing a specific group of substances linked to a single structure, the glomerulus.
This means that every receptor reacts to it multiple charms olfactory, which are also responsive to amines in humans. A discovery that doctors consider surprising, also because it explains the ability of mosquitoes to always identify people. No matter how much the receptors can be inhibited, the mosquito is always sensitive to human odors because it finds a way to reactivate a part that captures the odors. This has led scientists to claim that the mosquito system is nearly indestructible due to its structure. Which of course means that humans only have blunt weapons to protect themselves from the bites of this insect.