Can we paralyze the mosquito battery sensors ?, Which is better Killing or Repelling ?

A Community Health

How to Control Mosquitoes

Part 2: Mosquito’s battery sensors

Mosquitoes have 3 (three) kind of battery of sensors designed to track their hosts (animals, birds, human-beings), they are :
1. Chemical sensors - mosquitoes can detect or recognize carbon dioxide and lactic acid up to 36 meters away, mammals and birds gives off these gases as part of their normal breathing, certain chemicals in sweat also seem to attract mosquitoes, people who sweat less don't get many mosquitoes bites, one of the many ways to stop mosquitoes from biting is to confuse or inhibit their chemical receptors with chemical compound like DEET (N,N-diethyl-3-methyl-benzamide).
2. Visual sensors - if you are wearing clothing that contrasts with the background, and you move while wearing that clothing, mosquitoes can see you and pointed on you, for mosquitoes anything that moving means "alive", and therefore full of blood.
3. Heat sensors - Mosquitoes can detect heat, so they can find warm-blooded mammals and birds very easily once they get close enough. That is why mosquitoes can always detect our present no matter we are in dark rooms or in bright places, our body temperature 37º C are higher than the ambient temperature surround us.
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¬With many kinds of their sensors mosquitoes are so good at finding and biting human beings, eventhough, as a matter of fact, human beings are not the first choice for most mosquitoes looking for meals, they usually prefer horses, cattles, and birds.

Same with all insects, adult mosquitoes have three basic body parts:
1. Head - where all the sensors are, along with the biting apparatus. The head has two compound eyes, antennae to sense chemicals and the mouth parts called the palpus and the proboscis, only females h¬ave the proboscis, for biting.
2. Thorax - where the two wings and six legs attach, it contains the flight muscles, compound heart, some nerve cell ganglia and ¬trachioles.
3. Abdomen - contains the digestive and excretory organs.

It has been estimated that 300 to 400 compounds are released from our body as by-products of metabolism and among them more than hundred kinds of the metabolism by-products are organic volatile compounds (VOC) that can be detected in human breath. Unfortunately, among those odors, only a small fraction have been isolated and fully characterized. Carbon dioxide and lactic acid are the two best mosquito attractants.
• Carbon dioxide, released mainly from breath but also from skin, serves as a long-range airborne attractant and can be detected by mosquitoes at distances of up to 36 meters.
• Lactic acid, in combination with carbon dioxide, is also an attractant, mosquitoes have chemoreceptors on their antennae that are stimulated by lactic acid.

Skin temperature and moisture serve as mosquito attractants. Different species of mosquitoes may show strong biting preferences for different parts of the human body, such as the head or feet, which may be related to local skin temperature and eccrine sweat gland (skin sweat gland) output. Anhydrotic persons (persons who have less sweat) show markedly decreased attractiveness to mosquitoes. Other volatile compounds, derived from sebum (oily secretion of sebaceous gland in the hair follicels to lubricate the skin and the hair), eccrine and apocrine sweat (skin sweat glands), or the cutaneous microflora bacterial action on those secretions, may also act as chemo-attractants, the whole-host odors are more attractive than carbon dioxide and lactic acid alone. Be careful that floral fragrances from perfumes, soaps, lotions, and hair-care products may also attract mosquitoes, so do the same with eating banana fruits which will more attract the mosquito to bite.
The attractiveness of different persons to the same or different species of mosquitoes varies substantially. In general, adults are more likely to be bitten than children, although adults may become less attractive to mosquitoes as they age, men are bitten more readily than women, ovulating women (pregnant) more attractive than those menstruating, larger persons tend to attract more mosquitoes, perhaps because of their greater relative heat or carbon dioxide output.

Mosquitoes use exhaled carbon dioxide, body odors and temperature, and movement as the target point of their victims. Only female mosquitoes have the mouth parts necessary for sucking blood. When biting with their proboscis (sucking organ), they pierce two tubes into the skin, one to inject an enzyme that inhibits blood clotting (an anti-coagulant), the other to suck blood into their bodies. They use the blood not for their own food but as a source of protein for their eggs, the females of most mosquito species require a blood meal to support their developing eggs. they usually feed every 3 to 4 days; in a single feeding, a female mosquito typically consumes more than its own weight in blood, some mosquito species are zoophilic, preferring to feed on animals and others are anthropophilic, showing a preference for human blood. Certain species of mosquitoes prefer to feed at twilight or nighttime, others bite mostly during the day. For food, both males and females eat nectar and other plant sugars.

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