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Posted on 05/11/2011 5:47:21 AM PDT by Red Badger
Malaria mosquitoes utilize CO2 from exhaled air to localize humans from afar. In the vicinity of their preferred host, they alter their course towards the human feet. Researcher Remco Suer discovered how female malaria mosquitoes use foot odors in the last meters to guide them to their favoured biting place. Suer, who is defending his doctoral thesis May 9 at Wageningen University, part of Wageningen UR, sees possibilities to disrupt the host seeking behaviour of the malaria mosquito.
African malaria mosquitoes, Anopheles gambiae, use their olfactory organs, two antennae, two mouthparts (maxillary palps) and the proboscis, to search for their hosts to obtain a bloodmeal. From a distance of several tens of meters mosquitoes detect CO2 which forms part of exhaled air by humans. However, a malaria mosquito does not follow the CO2 trail to its source, the mouth, but at a certain point close to the source is diverted toward the feet, which is the preferred biting place for this mosquito species.
PhD candidate Remco Suer from the chair group Entomology of Wageningen University has uncovered a mechanism for this behavior. Previous research within this project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, showed that bacteria living on the human foot produce various odors and identified ten bacterial foot odors that, when offered as a blend, were attractive to malaria mosquitoes. Remco Suer now shows that nine out of these ten foot odors are detected by olfactory neurons present underneath hair-like structures on the mouthparts of the malaria mosquito. More importantly, he discovered that 5 of the 10 microbial odors are capable of blocking the response to CO2. By blocking the CO2 signal the mosquito stops orienting towards CO2 and diverts its attention to close range foot odors.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Great, I have sweaty feet and have to keep many pairs of shoes in rotation to avoid frito feet. I probable have more shoe than a lot of women. Now I know just how smart I was.
shoe=shoes
Eat a lot of garlic.
Blood suckers hate the smell of a salami.
To you stink, to mosquitoes sweet, so DEET your feet when you sleep.
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