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Updated: Sep 19, 2025

A Step-by-Step Guide to Mosquito Electroantennography
Published on: March 10, 2021
The sensory arsenal mosquitoes use to find us
1Neuroscience Research Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA; Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
Abstract:
Female mosquitoes that home in on people for blood meals are exquisitely effective at finding us. This is because they are endowed with an uncanny ability to sense virtually every cue people provide. These include exhaled CO2, the image of the host, and volatile body odors, which can be detected at distances of multiple meters. When they traverse to under 1 m, they sense thermal infrared (IR). Within a few centimeters of a human, they detect convection heat and humidity emanating from skin. Upon landing, mosquitoes taste nonvolatile chemicals and sense conduction heat before electing to engorge on blood or fly away. This review focuses on the cellular and receptor mechanisms underlying the sensory detection mechanisms that mosquitoes use to home in on us.
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