Research Uncovered Mosquitoes' Color Preference, Are They Really Attracted to Red?

Recent Studies have shown mosquito's visual attraction to colors, and these findings might have proven their visual attractions and how they easily detect humans.

(Photo : MANJUNATH KIRAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Colors That Attract Mosquitoes

Scientists at the University of Washington led a new research that revealed some colors mosquitoes are usually drawn to, these colors include red, black, orange, and cyan, ignoring other colors like green, purple, blue, and white.

This might have proven their attraction to humans due to their skin color. Regardless of human pigmentation, the visual colors of mosquitoes only sense the color red-orange within humans, this serves as a signal and direction.

When humans breathe out carbondioxide, the mosquitoes can detect telltale gas and also the scent of human sweat, which includes lactic acid.

Knowing the primary sense of smell of the mosquito and the supposed visual attraction, it might be easy to produce repellant for these blood feeding insects.

Jeffrey Riffell, senior author of the study and UW professor of biology said: "Mosquitoes appear to use odors to help them distinguish what is nearby, like a host to bite. When they smell specific compounds, like CO2 from our breath, that scent stimulates the eyes to scan for specific colors and other visual patterns, which are associated with a potential host, and head to them," as per Eurekalert

Also Read: Scientists Propose To Stop Malaria By Protecting Mosquitoes

Experimental Findings

The experiment was carried out on the female yellow fever mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti. This mosquito transmit lots of dangerous diseases like dengue fever, yellow fever, the Zika virus, and chikungunya.

 It belongs to the family of culicidae and is just like every regular blood sucking mosquito but can be diffrenciated by its black and white spottings. These mosquitoes were placed in diffrent chambers, sprayed with a specific odor and diffrent colors such as a colored dot or a tasty human hand.

From the observation, regardless of the odor stimulus, the mosquitoes were attracted to red, orange, black and cyan dots but completely ignored other dots that are green, purple or bue in color, according to Science Daily.

(Photo : JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images)

Color: The New Way to Control Mosquitoes

Although humans can't perceive CO2, the mosquitoes can, the CO2 boosts the activites of female mosquitoes according to the research, this experiment proved that after smelling CO2, these mosquitoes' eyes prefer certain wavelengths in the visual spectrum.

Researchers are not yet certain on how the mosquitoes percieve colors or if they are in anyway similar to that of humans, the research only concluded on the red, orange, black colors detection and upon repeated experimentation, the results were still the same.

More research other than visual attraction are still yet to be done. Research on skin secretions help in the selection of possible hosts at close range.

It is possible that other mosquito species may prefer other colors, depending on the host species they prefer. With this recent  findings, a new layer has been added to mosquito control - color. 

Related Article: New Mosquito Species From Asia Has Invaded East Africa

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