Health Topics – Johns Hopkins Medicine Podcasts
Jun 29, 2026 · 1 min · 3 segments
You may not think of yourself as especially odorous but your very breath combines with scents from your body to make a human bouquet that’s especially attractive to mosquitoes. That’s according to…
Elizabeth TracyOne of the things carbon dioxide does is it makes odors even more attractive to the mosquito.
So from like their 50 yard line, they can start picking up on body odors.
Body odors will start helping them figure out which directions they should be going into.
Their sense of vision is not great.
We're kind of like blobs to them.
but they pick up things like contrast.
They use vision to narrow in on, if I see an object in my environment, maybe that's the object that's giving off this particular wonderful smell.
As they get closer, they can start picking up on other cues.
Infrared radiation, a cue that warm bodies give off.
One of the things carbon dioxide does is it makes odors even more attractive to the mosquito.
So from like their 50 yard line, they can start picking up on body odors.
Body odors will start helping them figure out which directions they should be going into.
Their sense of vision is not great.
We're kind of like blobs to them.
but they pick up things like contrast.
They use vision to narrow in on, if I see an object in my environment, maybe that's the object that's giving off this particular wonderful smell.
As they get closer, they can start picking up on other cues.
Infrared radiation, a cue that warm bodies give off.
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