This is the color you should wear to avoid attracting mosquitoes this summer

The experiment that led to this conclusion was conducted on more than a million female mosquitoes (males do not bite). Locked in a two-meter chamber where a jet of carbon dioxide would be expected to attract them, they had the option of moving towards two targets of different colours. The result: most of them went red, black and orange.

Prefer white, light blue and purple

According to the researchers, these findings make it possible to imagine a new way for mosquitoes to go unnoticed: by dressing in white, light blue, or even purple. It should be noted, however, that red is naturally present on human skin, regardless of its color or our origin.

Therefore, it’s hard to avoid being a target for mosquitoes, unless you find a way to filter out that shade — wearing light colors is an option. But before paying attention to the color, mosquitoes are attracted above all to the smell Specific components, such as carbon dioxide.explains Jeffrey Revell, a professor of biology at the University of Washington and co-author of the study.

It should also be noted that the study only focused on one species of mosquito, the Aedes aegypti. This species can transmit dengue, Zika virus or even yellow fever. So further studies will be needed to evaluate the effect of colors on other mosquito species and then, perhaps, to imagine concrete solutions.