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May 28, 2011

Mosquitoes Bite Because of Your Smelly Feet

According to the research of one Remco Suer, mosquitoes might somehow be attracted to the bacteria in your sweat-soaked feet. That means finding a way to isolate these odors could reduce their nuisance and even slow the spread of disease.

Suer worked with the African mosquito Anopheles gambiae, one of the primary vectors for the spread malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, and tested them against the smells in his lab:
Suer tested their sense of smell in the labratory by pumping additional CO2 into a container to simulate human breath, then added a high concentration of five different foot odors and found that the mosquitoes were unable to react to the CO2 for several seconds. The sole-ful odors actually stopped mosquitoes from sensing CO2 from breathing — which could be a reason why malarial mosquitoes divert when honing in on a person and move instead to the feet at close ranges.


18 comments:

Kicking Rocks said...

i gotta start washing my feet

Bowz said...

That's surprising.

Lt Nite said...

Guess I'll just cover up my feet, I hate mosquitos.

Skankin_Pete said...

This explains why I always have so many mosquito bites on my legs! =O

kxxthanxx said...

oh no

Jay said...

my feet smell fine.

Sean said...

Interesting..I'm going to ask people that get bit a lot if they smell

charlie tuna said...

weird. good to know.

Jezzima said...

explains why i never get bit, my feet dont' smell like anything any carbon based life form would want to get close to

Frantz Fanon said...

And I always thought they liked the taste of my blood.

Carm said...

Hmm... I don't know what to say about this.

JustAnotherBloggerNamedCisco said...

LOL i think mythbusters did this and its true
TAKE SHOWERS NASTYS

kwile said...

Very interesting...good post.

gman said...

i always wondered why the little critters like my feet so much

Dejch said...

my feet don't smell but yet again i get owned by them :<

sp3nny said...

that's a helpfull information!i'll never go out with smelly feet again

Aru said...

What? Are you kidding me? :D

Athanasian Complexio said...

Gonna start spraying that odor blocking stuff in my feet now. I hate, hate, HATE having mosquito bites on my feet. Drives me crazy.