There is a 'Shockingly Weird' Reason Mosquitoes Always Seem to Find Us, Says Study

The relentless accuracy with which some mosquito species hunt down humans may be due to their bizarrely wired olfactory system.

Mosquitoes are able to sense CO 2 and sweat by using unique chemoreceptors in their antennae.

A new study led by researchers at Boston University and Rockefeller University explains why mosquitoes are able to sense humans even when they are genetically altered.

The mosquito species Aedes aegypti has a different way of organizing its olfactory system than most animals.

The researchers developed mosquitos that glow under a microscope when certain smells are present. Researchers were able to see how different smells stimulated the olfactory system.

It turns out that A. aegypti is involved in a process called co expression.

The core principle of olfactory science is that each neuron only has one chemoreceptor associated with it.

Senior author Meg Younger says this is weird. It's not what we were expecting.

Younger says that the central belief in olfaction is that each sensory nerve in our nose has a specific type of olfactoryreceptor.

The honeybee, the tobacco hornworm, and fruit flies all have the same number of sensory cells. There are structures in the brain that receive smells.

There is a "striking mismatch" between the number of receptors and the number of glomeruli in A. aegypti.

The results show that the olfactory system is different.

The researchers theorize that the mosquito olfactory system may be able to detect humans and mosquitoes at the same time.

Female mosquitoes must feed on human or animal blood to reproduce, and the lure of a blood meal is strong.

A long-term goal of the research is to create better mosquito deterrents that can hide human scent or repel mosquitoes.

A mosquito's ability to locate humans makes it a good carrier of diseases such as the mosquito-borne diseases of the tropics. Over one million people are killed by these viruses every year.

Younger says that they can create compounds that are more effective based on the biology of the smell.

The article was published in a journal.