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Everyone knows how it feels to have been feasted on by mosquitos and be covered in red, itchy bumps which cause irritation and discomfort. The itching that occurs after a bite by a mosquito - or any other bug - is your body’s unique reaction to the event. Our body’s natural reaction towards an anticoagulant is to create histamines and send them to the affected area. It is the histamines which cause the bite to itch. It’s not the mosquito that has caused both the swelling and the itching, but your immune system. Unfortunately, the vicious cycle is that the...

What’s the world’s deadliest animal? Many people say sharks, crocodiles, snakes or poisonous spiders. However, the bloodthirsty creature regularly considered to be the deadliest animal on Earth might not be what you’d expect. The true answer is that mosquitoes are the animal capable of taking the most lives, killing more people in one day than sharks do in a century. What the pesky flies lack in size has more than made up for in the number of potentially fatal diseases they’re able to carry and spread rapidly. Mosquitoes have been known to disseminate diseases and viruses including Malaria, Zika, Dengue,...

If you’re wondering why you always get bitten by mosquitoes while your friends are a bite and therefore itch-free, then you’re not alone. Often, when on holiday with a friend or a partner, you may feel like you’re always the target whilst they get off entirely free. This blog looks into why that might be the case. Science gives a few key answers to this question. Research suggests that an estimated 20% of people are especially attractive to mosquitoes for various reasons. Although there is still much to learn about this, scientists have come up with a few possible ideas...

Are you trying to avoid mosquitoes when you travel? Unfortunately, there aren’t many places you can go where you are guaranteed not to run into these pests, but what you can do if you’re willing is follow the temperature. Mosquitoes are cold-blooded insects, which means that their body temperature is usually the same as their environment since they don’t have the ability to regulate their internal temperatures. Therefore, they shut down when temperatures in their environment drop below 10 degrees - so mid-October to early November is when you’ll likely notice lower levels of mosquito activity in many parts of...