• Question: Why are insects like Mosquitoes more attracted to some people and bite them more?

    Asked by monkey123 to Alison, Hannah, Jonny, MarthaNari, Paul on 23 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Jonny Brooks-Bartlett

      Jonny Brooks-Bartlett answered on 23 Jun 2015:

      There are some potential reasons for this:
      1) Type O blood type
      2) Genetics- you may release more chemicals than other people
      3) Hot skin – if you exercise this makes your skin hot and you release chemicals that attract them.
      4) Breathing out more carbon dioxide
      5) Being pregnant
      6) Drinking beer

      My friend has written a really good blog post about this which you can read here: http://sparklyscience.com/

    • Photo: Paul Brack

      Paul Brack answered on 26 Jun 2015:

      Apparently 1 in 10 of us are super attractive to mosquitos, for the reasons Jonny mentioned, and the mosquitos can smell this up to 50 m away, which is a massive distance for them to be able to smell. See here for lots more: http://www.webmd.com/allergies/features/are-you-mosquito-magnet

Comments