To Avoid Mosquitoes, Stop Breathing and Be Invisible

Hungry mosquitoes use an arsenal of sensory tools to hunt you down. They sniff out the carbon dioxide you exhale; they home in on your heat signature. But a previously under-appreciated tool in the mosquito's kit is the same one you use just before slapping at it in horror: vision. At Caltech, Floris van Breugel put mosquitoes in a wind tunnel to tease apart how they find their meals. He used Aedes aegypti, a tropical species that spreads yellow fever and other diseases. The insects were all female, since female mosquitoes are the bloodsuckers. The mosquitoes flew in a wind tunnel 1.2 meters long. Close to the upwind end was a dark spot on the floor—to a mosquito, this could be the shape of a person standing below, or some other animal worth checking out. Then van Breugel pumped a plume of carbon dioxide into the tunnel. A whiff of ...