U.S. NEWS - "Though others have identified compounds that attract mosquitoes, many of them don't elicit a strong, rapid effect. This one does," said study co-author Ring Cardé, a professor of entomology at the University of California, Riverside.
Skin odors appear to be the most important for mosquitoes when locating someone to bite, but other cues include sight, temperature and humidity.
"We demonstrated that mosquitoes land on visually indistinct targets imbued with these two odors, and these targets aren't associated with heat or moisture," Cardé said in a university news release. "That leaves skin odor as the key guiding factor.
"I suspected there was something undiscovered about the chemistry of odors luring the yellow fever mosquito. I wanted to nail down the exact blend," he explained.