As mosquito activity wanes in the approaching winter, a UF study released this month suggests the paperclip-sized vampires bite female birds twice as much as males do.
Bugs often bite birds, which act as natural reservoirs for mosquitoes and carry diseases like Eastern equine encephalitis and West Nile virus.
The hypothesis just developed out of curiosity, said Nathan D. Burkett-Cadena, an assistant professor at the UF Medical Entomology Laboratory in Vero Beach where the study was conducted.
“If you look at the individuals infected within a species, it is rarely 50/50,” Burkett-Cadena said. “There are disparities in mosquito exposure that are sex driven, and we have to look at this in more detail.”
Of the 3,500 different species of mosquitoes, he said, only three were used in the study.
To conduct the research, mosquitoes were collected from the wild, Burkett-Cadena said. Through various tests, researchers were able to determine where the blood in each mosquito came from.
Once you have that information, you can use it to determine ways to decrease bites, he said.
UF forestry senior Charlie Wilson, 24, said he spends a lot of time outdoors with the forestry club. To fend off mosquitoes, Wilson said he wears pants and long sleeves. But even then, clothes don’t stop exposure.
“I would love more research to be done to help know how to prevent mosquitoes from biting me,” Wilson said.
[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 11/19/2014]
