Mosquito Fun Facts

Poison ivy can make life for pet owners miserable, but there are tips to help

I woke up with a few red bumps a little over 10 years ago and thought that they were mosquito bites.

As a fairly learned gardener even at that time, a few extra bug bites and sore muscles were par for the course and well worth the minor discomfort if I could make gains in my perennial beds with all of the work that I was able to accomplish. It was no big deal.

It didn't take long for those few red bumps to turn into painful, itchy, red, weepy welts that were widespread — and for me to realize that I had a nasty allergic reaction to getting into poison ivy .

I had not displayed any sensitivity to poison ivy prior to that, and it's been all downhill from there, I'm sad to report. I'm hypersensitive, and now, I'm not just careful about not getting it, I'm paranoid.

When I'm working out in the yard, my first line of defense is carefully covering as much exposed skin as possible and applying IvyBlock to anything that can be exposed to that miserable plant. Washing any tools (usually with Tecnu or dish soap) after use and laundering my clothing and footwear has become a must, as the oil secreted by the plants, urushiol , can remain active on clothing and surfaces for a very long time, even years.

In the years since my first reaction, I began scouring the property to see where the noxious weed could be growing, but I soon found that it was impossible to avoid it completely, due to being on a couple of acres that are heavily wooded and overgrown in some places. In earlier years, I didn't recall that it was so widespread — now, it seems that it's everywhere.

I've been hearing some unsettling news from people like Lewis Ziska , plant physiologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's agricultural research service, who stated in an interview on NPR's All Things Considered that increasing carbon dioxide levels are enabling these woody vines to spread faster, grow larger and crop up in new places. Even worse, they are becoming more toxic.

A Duke University study supports these findings .

Birds help to spread the invasive vines by eating the fruit, as William Gillis, Ph.D. from Michigan State University pointed out years ago. He details more poison ivy facts here.

MOSQUITOES LOVE BEER DRINKERS - San Diego Happy Hour Magazine

Some folks seem to be magnets for mosquitoes, while others rarely get bitten. What makes the little buggers single you out and not the guy or gal you’re standing next to at the Memorial Day backyard barbecue?

The two most important reasons a mosquito is attracted to you have to do with sight and smell, says Jonathan Day, a professor of medical entomology at the University of Florida in Vero Beach. Lab studies suggest that 20 percent of people are high attractor types, he says.

Mosquitoes are highly visual, especially later in the afternoon, and their first mode of search for humans is through vision, explains Day. People dressed in dark colors — black, navy blue, red — stand out and movement is another cue.

Once the mosquito keys in on a promising visual target, she (and it’s always “she” — only the ladies bite) then picks up on smell. The main attractor is your rate of carbon dioxide production with every exhale you take.

Those with higher metabolic rates produce more carbon dioxide, as do larger people and pregnant women. Although carbon dioxide is the primary attractant, other secondary smells coming from your skin or breath mark you as a good landing spot.

Lactic acid (given off while exercising), acetone (a chemical released in your breath), and estradiol (a breakdown product of estrogen) can all be released at varying concentrations and lure in mosquitoes, says Day. Your body temperature, or warmth, can also make a difference. Mosquitoes may flock to pregnant women because of their extra body heat.

But with more than 350 compounds isolated from odors produced by human skin, researchers have barely scratched the surface behind a mosquito’s preference for certain people, says Joseph Conlon, a medical entomologist and the technical advisor to the American Mosquito Control Association.

Although it may all boil down to human odor and genetics — studies of twins have revealed they tend to be attractive or repellant to mosquitoes in the same measure — it’s more complicated than that, suggests Conlon.

He says the latest thinking is that it might not be about what makes people more attractive to mosquitoes, but what makes them not as repellant. It could be that individuals who get less bites produce chemicals on their skin that make them more repellant and cover up smells that mosquitoes find attractive.

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