You could avoid mosquito bites by never wearing these four colors, scientists claim

SCIENTISTS say you can dodge mosquito bites by avoiding certain colored clothing, according to a new report.

Researchers have discovered that after they detect carbon dioxide, mosquitos pinpoint potential victims by scanning for certain colors.

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The findings were detailed in a paper published on Friday in the journal Nature Communications.

According to the article, vision plays an integral role for mosquitos, who use it to track odors and locate both hosts and mates.

The carbon dioxide (CO2) that humans emit when they breathe out is what initially attracts a mosquito to humans, however, they then scan for a certain color to pinpoint a victim.

The colors that most often draw a mosquito to a victim include red, orange, black, and cyan.

“Imagine you’re on a sidewalk and you smell pie crust and cinnamon,” Jeffrey Riffell, a biologist at the University of Washington and senior author of the study, said in a statement.

“That’s probably a sign that there’s a bakery nearby, and you might start looking around for it. Here, we started to learn what visual elements mosquitoes are looking for after smelling their own version of a bakery.”

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Indeed, mosquitos do not ‘see’ colors the way that humans do, however, they can perceive longer wavelengths on the visible spectrum.

From the perspective of a mosquito, human skin is (associated with red on the visible spectrum) gives off longer wavelengths, regardless of pigment.

“The color of a food resource, such as a flower or warm-blooded host, can be dominated by long wavelengths of the visible light spectrum (green to red for humans) and is likely important for object recognition and localization,” the journal article noted.

Still, there is some hope for getting mosquitos off your tail: Wearing green, purple, blue, and white.

According to the study, the wavelengths associated with those colors were the least likely to attract mosquitos.

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In other news, Nasa has upgraded its asteroid hazard software with some key changes that should help it better detect potentially dangerous space rocks.

Nasa has revealed stunning footage of a solar flare in action.

And, the US space agency is planning for a ‘golden asteroid’ probing mission to launch this summer.

This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk