July 14, 2024

Now I Know Why Mosquitoes Love Me

 

'"Type O — yes!"

One day a few years ago, my wife and I were walking one summer's afternoon along the Riverwalk in Cañon City.  Unfortunately, various ditches and sloughs were providing excellent habitat for mosquitoes, insects created by the evil anti-god to plague us mammals.

Having forgotten to apply bug spray, I was being hammered while she walked along without much concern. Eventually, I had to tell her that I was going to back to the car, thus spoiling an otherwise pleasant stroll.

But there's a reason! Maybe it's because they like my smell:

That doesn’t mean someone who’s particularly fragrant to humans will always be a mosquito target — mosquitoes are sensitive to different types of smells, even ones humans can’t detect, Dr. [Lindy] McBride said. For instance, “mosquitoes love forearm odor,” she said. “No one ever thinks of their arms as being smelly.”

Or it's my blood type. I have Type O+, like 38 percent of the population.( But it's O- that makes you a "universal donor.") Both O types together make up 43 percent of the population.

Blood type may also matter, said Dr. Christopher Bazzoli, an emergency medicine physician at the Cleveland Clinic who specializes in wilderness medicine. Mosquitoes seem to gravitate toward people with Type O blood, he said, for reasons researchers haven’t confirmed.

Now this would be more interesting if M. knew her blood type. But she has never donated and never has been hospitalized, so she does not.

Clearly, mosquitos are optimized for the most common type.

Memo: pack the bug spray.

1 comment:

  1. I am reminded of a nature show years ago--some guy who loved bears. He was sitting under a tree one day, he'd applied citronella to keep away the skeeters. Turned out bears LOVE citronella. A bear showed up, sniffed the guy, and started rubbing itself all over the guy, like an affectionate cat.

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