by Eric Lannak

Created on: April 30, 2010

There are over 3000 types of mosquitoes in the world, and over 150 in North America alone. This may seem like a “fun fact”, but every type of mosquito has its own tastes, habits, and preferences, and what repels them in Spokane may not work in Austin, Perth, or Dublin. Even within a species, mosquitoes have different and individual preferences, so there’s almost no “this always works” advice.

There’s only one sure-fire way to keep almost all mosquitoes away, and that’s using 25% or stronger DEET on all exposed skin and treating clothing with the repellent permethrin. This combination has shown to be nearly 100% effective for many hours. (More on repellents later).

It’s a good idea to take these measures for camping, hiking, and outdoor work in the garden when the bugs are really biting, but most of us would like to avoid going full- time-chemical.

The next best thing is to break the chain of events that takes a mosquito from breeding ground to your flesh, and to do this you should understand that chain.

HOW THEY FIND YOU

Mosquitoes will stay around their breeding grounds if there’s enough food and an occasional blood meal. Both males and females live off plant juices, but females need blood to develop and lay eggs, and they’ll search out a host every 2-3 days.

When she feels the need, she tracks her prey from scents like CO2 and lactic acid, and switches to visual cues when she sees a likely source. Her visual cues are very different than ours because she can see in infrared, and sees heat auras and plumes of moist air around living animals.  

Once she’s within a few feet she begins working almost entirely on scent, deciding whether you seem tasty or not. If you seem like her type she’ll pick out a body part to bite, and she may even land nearby and scope you out. If she doesn’t like your smell up close, on the other hand, she’ll just leave. (This happens more often than you think).

Breaking this chain of events will keep the mosquitoes from biting you, and there are a lot of things you can do to break it.

STOP THE BREEDING

Mosquitoes will breed anywhere there is standing water, and they don’t need much. Boggy places in the woods, blocked gutters, or roadside ditches will do for many species, and some species lay eggs that stay dormant for up to two years waiting for a puddle to form. If they don’t get born near you it makes it harder for them to find your home.

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