Have you ever dealt with a swarm of airborne bloodsuckers that, for no apparent reason, ignored everyone else in your group while honing in on you, reducing you to a sack of blood and histamines? Of course, one helpful chucklefuck in your group of friends just has to say “well they never bother me.”
You’re not hallucinating it. That friend is indeed a douche, and the mosquitoes probably think you’re a fucking snack.
Today’s Moment of Science… The Plight of the Mosquito Magnet.
The humble mosquito, along with being the state bird of Missouri, is the deadliest wild animal in existence. They spread disease like it’s their only goddamn purpose on this planet. Along with dengue fever, yellow fever, West Nile virus, Zika, and a good half dozen other hard-passes, the big fucker in their arsenal is malaria. Even with modern treatments and a second vaccine that was recently approved, it still kills over 600,000 people annually. The mosquito is the vector for the underlying cause of malaria, the Plasmodium parasite.
There are about 3,500 species of mosquitoes and their diets vary quite a bit. Some guzzle amphibian blood, others really dig birds, and there are adventurous tiny jerks who dine on snakes. Then there’s the elephant mosquito with a borderline cannibalistic streak; it doesn’t drink blood, but it will eat a fuckload of blood-drinking mosquitoes.
Though it may feel like it, mosquitoes themselves aren’t parasites. That typically requires feeding on a host for survival over an extended period of time. These winged prick-faces have other sources of food. Mosquitoes consume nectar like a good little insect should. Only the females have a vampiric streak, and it’s specifically done to produce eggs. In some species, the more little bloody nips she gets, the bigger the next generation of welt-producing monstrosities she lays.
The mosquito bite itself only feels like it can kill you.
“But Ms. Auntie SciBabe,” I hear one person ask with one hand raised and one hand scratching at a bleeding swollen spot on their leg, “fucking why?”
Sneaking a meal past our physiological defenses is nasty business. Mosquito saliva is fairly complex stuff. They’re making your blood vessels dilate just a smidge and dropping some anti-clotting agents in the mix, giving them an all-access pass to Flavortown, population: you (Guy Fieri, come for me). The laundry list of proteins and enzymes they poke into you is what causes, to varying extents, all those fucking ouchies.
This summer (and spring… and autumn…), my legs turned into a constellation map of mosquito bites. My roommate escaped relatively unscathed. So why are these Cretaceous era nopes so determined to get a taste of… this?
Is it the drugs? Did they figure out I run the fun blood bank?
No, it turns out it’s my goddamn blood type. Thanks a heap, Mom.
(Who, curiously, is almost never bothered by mosquitoes).
It’s not exactly clear why, but indeed, there are a handful of factors that attract mosquitoes more to some folks than others. They seem to detect us via carbon dioxide output, and since we all, uh, exhale, it’s hard to pin down exactly why this makes some of us seem tastier than others. Pregnancy, a higher body temperature, and even the presence of alcohol in your system can be factors in attracting the lightly buzzing menace. All sorts of earthly delights that are naturally present on human skin, including bacteria, lactic acid, and carboxylic acid give off a ‘come hither’ chemical signal to these little bastards. However, the composition of your natural odor was baked into your genetic cake, so there’s only so much you can do to fight it. Hear me out though- regular bathing probably won’t hurt the situation.
As for the blood type? They’re attracted to people with type O blood significantly more than type A. There’s also preference for type O over AB and B, but the most stark difference is between blood types A and O. So… my O+ blood and I will continue to be popular at blood banks and with my local swamp angel population.
Curiously, they’re more attracted to people wearing the color black. Science doesn’t have an answer, but I’m pretty sure it’s just always in good taste.
(I hear your groaning and I accept it).
Yesterday, I asked if y’all think you’re a skeeter buffet or not, and how bad the itching is, and I crunched some numbers on that. A bit over 60% of respondents said they’re mosquito magnets. Most people who claim popularity with these cursed Plasmodium hosts also said they were likely to have major itching. But of course, this was all self-reported, and not an entirely random sample. So it’s possible that these data skew more heavily towards people who, much like me, would like to tell everyone how they damn near scratched off a fucking limb because of these goddamn fucking mosquitoes.
This has been your Moment of Science, reminding you one animal outranks the mosquito for kill count, and that’s our fellow humans.
Join the discussion!