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tyler1128 t1_irkmo2m wrote

It's not taste so much as smell. Mosquitos are attracted to the CO2 we emit, but also more attracted to some people than others. Exactly why this is the case is still being studied, but genetics and lifestyle are likely part of it, as is determines the exact composition of your sweat and body oils. Everyone is slightly different in that regard.

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almostparent t1_irlvsf1 wrote

I read somewhere that's it's because of the amount of hemoglobin in blood. It's more nutritious to them and type O blood has the most hemoglobin out of all the blood types.

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UmdieEcke2 t1_irm3zb3 wrote

But how would a mosquito smell that? Once they pierce the skin to potentially analyse your blood they're already comitted. I would be really surprised if your hemo content correlates with your smell in any appreciable way.

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almostparent t1_irm4hba wrote

Saliva and sweat are super diluted blood, they can smell that on your skin but there's no definitive proof they smell hemoglobin specifically. I found an article on the saliva and sweat and them generally being more attracted to type O blood. I think it smells good to them the way food smells good to us. I have type O blood and I get bit way more than people I'm around with different blood types. Also in my opinion it might have something to do with them being pregnant, when humans get pregnant they crave stuff depending on what vitamins their body needs and sometimes the sense of smell can get hypersensitive I kinda imagine it's the same for other land creatures that are pregnant. https://www.healthline.com/health/mosquito-blood-type#research edit: a word

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[deleted] t1_iruqti6 wrote

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almostparent t1_irus8lw wrote

I don't think the level of hemoglobin is exact I just know type O has more than other blood types, maybe you just have more than her like how people are 50%-60% genetically similar to bananas, some people are more banana than others.

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dudemann t1_iruselm wrote

If anything, she's absolutely more bananas than me and since I've never seen mosquitos swarming bananas, that's just going to be my answer from here on out. Thanks.

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onFilm t1_iserfe5 wrote

Does our saliva have blood cells in it? How about our sweat?

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CRABMAN16 t1_irkyg3y wrote

This is the correct answer, it is a combination of bodily emissions that make one person more attractive than another. Anecdotally I have noticed that friends and family that are pregnant get bitten much more than others, no ideas why.

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AlterEdward t1_irkefks wrote

It's well documented that fleas do prefer some people over others, though it's not fully understood why. A couple of likely explanations are particular scents that people give off attract them more, that some people simply react to the bites more, making them more noticeable, or a combination of those.

Anecdotally, when I lived with my parents and our cats caught fleas, we never thought of it as a big deal. We'd just see one occasionally. None of us ever got bitten. So years later, when my wife and I got a cat and it got fleas, I kept telling her it was no big deal, however she would be covered in bites. She would only have to stand in an infested area, and within a few seconds, you'd see them jumping up her legs. I would stand in the same area, and they wouldn't touch me. It was really strange.

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Verbenaplant t1_irmetzw wrote

Yeah I found out one of my ex’s had fleas and no one believed me so I sat there with one foot on the floor and just picking them off and drowning them.

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mkawick t1_irm1jcr wrote

Anecdotally, my frieds in SoCal can hang out and are usually bitten at about equal rates... until I show up, and then they receive very few bites and I become the blood bank for the entire swarm of female mosquitoes in SoCal. Sometimes, they say things like "mike is here to take care of the mosquito problem for us"

I must smell good. Blood type A+. Not sure if that matters.

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themirandarin t1_isvttmx wrote

This happens to me, and I am also type A+. Supposedly O is the tastiest to them. All I know is that I am delicious.

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fatbellyww t1_irmpgaj wrote

While I have limited knowledge of the science behind it and others have explained it better than I could anyway, I can tell you with 100% certainty that it's true at least in regards to the smell/visuals and that the effect is very pronounced due to having unwillingly and excessively observed mosquito behavior during military service in a mosquito ridden area in the north of sweden (arctic ranger). Of course behavior might vary between different types of mosquitoes.

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It's almost the perfect empirical experiment for your question; dozens of men line up, and stand still so that the mosquitoes can freely choose their victim (the first day or days no one told us to use insect repellant but everyone quickly learnt after that - after using repellant the effect was similar, they just didn't settle to bite much).

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The result was that one guy might have a few mosquitoes, the next none, the next dozens, then one would have hundreds or thousands, pattern repeated until the end of the line.

As a rough estimate, perhaps one person in 10 or so would be super attractive and have the vast majority of mosquitoes around them, and the rest 0-50 each.

Some people, myself included, simply seemed so incredibly attractive to mosquitoes to the point of creating little clouds of them.

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Another observation I made is that when bathing in cold water, like a mountain lake, the mosquitoes and all the other resident stinging and biting insects like horseflies etc did not notice you and did not bite for about a minute. I assumed this was due to cold skin (so less IR, or less visible blood vessels, or less smell, or some combination).

If you get dressed really quick and quickly apply insect repellant you can completely avoid getting bitten.

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There is also an old folk-saying that those the mosquitoes like, the ticks don't, and vice versa. Anecdotally for me, it has held true, as the mosquitoes truly love me but I have never had a tick despite being very active in areas in nature where others frequently get ticks.

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Fun fact: our platoon record for killing mosquitoes in a single open hand strike was 63.

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marouane53 t1_irr1qw8 wrote

There is some evidence to support this claim. A study conducted in 2005 found that certain chemicals in human skin attract mosquitos. Additionally, people who produce more of these chemicals are more likely to be bitten by mosquitos. However, more research is needed to confirm this claim.

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