First-Ever Evidence That Mosquitoes Can Be Trained

[Ninja'd]

https://news.nationalgeographic.com...oes-repellent-memory-learning-health-science/

The next time you spot a mosquito alighting on your arm for a sip, definitely take aim. Even if you miss, there’s a good chance the pest won’t target you next time.

It turns out that by slapping at a mosquito about to bite, the insect learns to associate that near-death encounter with your personal scent and avoid you in the future. The work, appearing this week in Current Biology, marks the first time anyone has shown that mosquitoes are capable of learning and remembering.

“They’re essentially Pavlov's mosquitoes,” says University of Washington neuroecologist Jeff Riffell, referring to the famous experiment that conditioned dogs to salivate on cue. Like those canines of science lore, Riffell used classical conditioning to test whether his insect subjects could learn to associate a negative stimulus with a scent.

Mosquitoes are drawn to certain odors wafted by tasty targets, including humans. While bathed in a highly attractive human scent, Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were exposed to a 20-minute session of little bite-disturbing vibrations, similar in intensity to the reverberations that travel up an arm after a slap.

Riffell’s team found that these mosquitoes then avoided that scent for more than 24 hours afterward—an effect as powerful as an application of over-the-counter repellent sprays made with DEET.

I call bulls**t

 

[RedViking]

I train them with poison. It stops them before they even attack. You should try it. It's a scietific breakthrough...

 

[Muttley]

Well then freakin train the lot to become kamikaze pilots!

 

[Ghoster79]

Unless you training them to commit suicide, that was a total waste of time and resources. Also, why would you slap a mozzie, but not hard enough to kill it outright - just to teach it a lesson? when an effing waste of time - University of Washington obviously has too much money and staff with too much time on there hands.

 

[The_MAC]

Seems like the occasional pair in our bedroom seem to be immune to me face slapping myself, in close proximity to them..