Pavlov’s Mosquito: Pests Can Be Conditioned to See DEET as a Meal Ticket Instead of a Deterrent

Mosquitoes may have surprisingly overcome one of humanity’s best defenses against them, coming to associate the smell of DEET with a nearby meal, an international team of researchers says.

Pavlov’s Mosquito: Pests Can Be Conditioned to See DEET as a Meal Ticket Instead of a Deterrent. Mosquitoes may have surprisingly overcome one of humanity’s best defenses against them, coming to associate the smell of DEET with a nearby meal, an international team of researchers says. In a recent paper published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, the researchers identified that repeated exposure reduced DEET’s repellent effect on mosquitoes. However, their findings don’t end there; the team also discovered that under certain conditions, DEET may actually begin to attract mosquitoes rather than repel them, offering a strange glimpse into nature’s adaptive qualities. DEET and Mosquitoes DEET, the common name for diethyltoluamide, is a clear or slightly yellow liquid used to ward off insects, such as ticks, fleas, and mosquitoes. It has...