Shown here are female mosquitoes of the animal-biting African subspecies Aedes aegypti formosus (left) and the human-biting, globally invasive subspecies Aedes aegypti aegypti (right). Our odors are complicatedIt's not an easy question to answer, since any animal smell is made up of hundreds of chemical compounds mixed together in specific ratios. (From left) Noah Rose, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton, and Gilbert Bianquinche survey a tree hole near Kedougou, Senegal, for Aedes aegypti larvae. More than half of the world's population lives in areas where Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are present. It's what likely leads to the high levels of decanal that help the mosquitoes smell their way to us, but more studies need to be done.

Source: CNN December 26, 2020 10:07 UTC