The way our bodies react to mosquito saliva motivates us to avoid being bitten. Which must have had evolutionary benefits, keeping us away from diseases.
I.e. all those people that didn’t mind them and never got itchy from mosquito bites appear to have died out. And mosquitoes really wish that wasn’t true.
I disagree. I live in mosquito land and get bitten a lot. I’d say the majority of mosquitos biting me, I feel when they land, before they bite. Probably half of those I can either slap or miss and they take off again and try again. There are some spots though where I don’t feel them land. The annoying ones are those I feel touching me but they don’t land, they just fly around. Those are hard to slap.
Unrelated question: does anybody happen to know if the biting time matters for transmitting disease?
2 mosquitos died on me while typing out this comment.
Maybe my mosquitos are different than yours (just looked, and there are 3600 different kinds). Usually when I take my dog out so she can “commune with nature”, I’ll end up getting bit two or three times by mosquitos. I never feel them at all, except for the itchy bumps after the fact. Could be me. I only ever get bit on my legs/ankles.
As for bite time, I don’t think it’s the length of time the mosquito feeds, but the act of breaking skin and feeding. The malaria parasite will cause the mosquito to bite over and over again, which probably increases the infection rate.
Maybe they are different. I live in Asia. From what I heard there are many mosquito species, but the majority not blood sucking or at least not human blood sucking. Only few species carry disease, if I recall correctly.
To be fair, when I’m preoccupied, I also don’t feel them always. Or I feel them but my hands are busy, so I can’t slap them. I often have this at night, when I’m playing PC games and my feet get stung up. It’ll be like “ouch, my foot! Gotta slap that mosquito, but first I finish this in game. And then this.” Procrastinating until it’s too late.
I believe ankles are prime for them due to thin skin.
One mosquito died, writing this comment.
You need a net. Or some kinda natural deterrent.
I haven’t tried it myself, but I’ve heard coffee grounds are a good mosquito repellent. If you have access to essential oils, you should also look into citronella oil too.
Keep up the good fight!
I use mosquito coils, they are very effective.
I also have an electric bat, although it’s more for the phycho fun of killing than helping reducing bites. They are just too many.
I tried lemongrass as a natural deterrent but had the impression it made no difference.
What works best for me is: slapping those you can while not caring about the rest. Because once you start to scratch it’s a vicious cycle, so I don’t touch stings and usually then forget about them shortly after.
That site is cancer lol.
It isn’t wrong, but holy crap is it badly done
Mosquito land? Sounds awful! Where is it? So I can avoid it, of course.