There are about 3,500 species of mosquitoes around the world, but only a few are responsible for spreading infectious diseases to humans.
Scientists studied mosquitoes across sub-Saharan Africa and found that mosquitoes actually have wide-ranging palates.
"There's a huge diversity in mosquito preferences. Some like to bite humans and others don't like to bite humans at all," said the paper's co-author Noah Rose, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University in New Jersey.
"At first we thought that mosquitoes who lived around people would simply like to bite people and that those who lived in the forests wouldn't like to bite humans," Rose said. "We were really surprised that that wasn't the case."
While mosquitoes living near dense cities such as Kumasi, Ghana, or Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, showed increased willingness to bite humans, researchers found that city life alone didn't explain the mosquitoes' evolution. In fact, any mosquitoes living in large cities still preferred to bite animals rather than human hosts.
That's where the second factor -- dry climate -- comes in. In areas with harsh dry seasons, such as Africa's Sahel region, extending from Senegal to Sudan and Eritrea, mosquitoes evolved to have a strong preference for humans.
"Mosquitoes are dependent on containers of water for their larvae," Rose told CNN. "So in places with an intense long dry season, mosquitoes become very dependent on humans who store water."
The mosquitoes' evolution to bite humans is a by-product of their dependency on breeding in areas close to human city life. That means urbanization in the coming decades could lead to even more human-biting mosquitoes in the future.
Urbanization to spark further change in mosquitoes
The new research predicts this rapid urbanization will drive further mosquito evolution, causing a shift toward biting humans in many large cities by 2050.
"We should be watching these mosquitoes," said Rose, noting that the future of mosquito adaptations is still uncertain.
"We don't really know what will happen when the urbanization of sub-Saharan Africa moves beyond what we see in the present day. But we know something will happen and we think that it will be a shift to biting more human hosts."
That means the way mosquitoes spread disease could also change.
But in the short term, researchers said that climate change isn't expected to drive major changes to dry season dynamics that impact the mosquitoes' behavior.
Mosquitoes can thrive in different habitats
It took more than three years for the international team of scientists to conduct the research and collect mosquito egg samples from a wide range of habitats across 27 locations in Africa.
"I was surprised that immediate habitat didn't have much of an effect -- mosquitoes in forests and nearby towns had similar behavior," Rose said.
"We thought that maybe moving into human landscapes would be a key driver of attraction to human hosts. But it seems like mosquitoes fly back and forth too readily between these habitats for their behavior to diverge in many cases."
Mosquitoes can thrive in a "mosaic of habitats" within the same region, which makes preventing mosquito-bourne illnesses an even greater challenge, he added.
"Even if you got rid of the human-biting mosquitoes in one place, there's a huge diversity of mosquitoes in a habitat. They're really good at solving problems and surviving in different habitats," Rose said.
The World Health Organization has said mosquito control can effectively reduce the transmission of vector-borne diseases like Zika and yellow fever, but "mosquito control is complex, costly, and blunted by the spread of insecticide resistance."
Protect yourself from mosquitoes
For people living in or traveling to areas where mosquito-borne illness is prevalent, there are a few things you can do to prevent mosquito bites, according to the US Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health and WHO:
Read more:
How mosquitoes evolved to be attracted to humans, and what that means for the future - CNN
- Days of our Lives' Suzanne Rogers on the Evolution of Maggie: "She Knows Who She Is Now, and She's Not Relying ... - Michael Fairman TV - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- Kylie Jenner Talks About Her Style Evolution - The Cut - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- Equator Coffees Unveils New Packaging Design, Reflecting Brand Evolution & Vision For The Future - Sprudge - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- Rosewood Hotel Group Accelerates Growth And Evolution Across Its Four Distinctive Brands - Hospitality Net - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- Thomson Reuters Unveils New Brand Evolution - Adweek - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- Is It Becoming Acceptable to Speak of Design? - Discovery Institute - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- Did Charles Darwin Convert to Christianity and Discredit Evolution on His Deathbed? - Snopes.com - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- Milk, it's not just for mammals: An amphibian makes it too - NPR - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- Discover Puerto Rico Debuts Evolution of Its Successful 'Live Boricua' Brand Campaign Aimed at Engaging Visitors ... - Yahoo Finance - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- A Journey Through Time: The Evolution of Ras Al Khaimah Art - Business Wire - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- Empowering Women: The Evolution and Innovation of coto Social Platform - CXOToday.com - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- The Evolution of Da'Vine Joy Randolph - The Root - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- Study on mating behaviors offers clues into the evolution of attraction - Phys.org - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- Dragonball Evolutions live-action Goku says goodbye to Toriyama: Sorry we messed up - AS USA - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- Investec, evolution of SMEs in the materials handling sector - Leasing Life - March 14th, 2024 [March 14th, 2024]
- Pride & Prejudice and the evolution of the female gaze on screen - Yahoo News UK - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Joe Wong's Musical Evolution - Shepherd Express - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- A global survey of prokaryotic genomes reveals the eco-evolutionary pressures driving horizontal gene transfer - Nature.com - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Redefining Intelligence: Chimpanzees Break Through the Cultural Evolution Barrier - Medriva - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Mollusk Eyes Reveal How Future Evolution Depends on the Past - Quanta Magazine - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Levy Delves Into the Evolution of ADCs in NSCLC - OncLive - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- The Snake Is The Spearhead of Reptile Evolution, But Why? - ScienceAlert - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- 'A very special day: Birds linked to Darwins theory of evolution reintroduced to Galapagos Islands - Euronews - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Why the Powerhouses of Cells Evolve Differently in Plants - College of Natural Sciences - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Driving the DevOps Evolution: ArgoCD, Tekton and Seamless Migrations - DevOps.com - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Finding the Balance: The Evolution of Public Health Guidance Amidst Controversy - Medriva - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Insider Podcast: Paolini dishes on her Polish roots and hard-court evolution - WTA Tennis - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Interview: Sara Gruen and Rick Elice Talk About the Inspiration and Evolution of the New Musical Water for Elephants - TheaterMania.com - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- The Evolution of the Laravel Welcome Page - Laravel News - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- A Serpentine 'Explosion' 125 Million Years Ago Primed Snakes for Rapid, Diverse Evolution - Smithsonian Magazine - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- The Evolution of Modern Technologies in Car Development - FinSMEs - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Milwaukee Transformed: From Bronzeville to Veterans Park, Aerial Timelapses Reveal City's Evolution - BNN Breaking - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- The eyes are a gateway to evolution of daddy longlegs at least. - University of Wisconsin-Madison - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Adrian Newey: RB20 is the next step in Red Bull's design evolution - PlanetSport - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- LiveScore releases its 'Evolution of Fan' report - Gambling Insider - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- The loyalty program evolution makes its way to the full-service restaurant category - Nation's Restaurant News - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin II - Re-Evolution #1 spoiler-free review: goes hard on the action, but ... - Gamesradar - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Exploring U.S. Financial Evolution: DAR Hosts Talk on Federal Reserve History in Thomasville - BNN Breaking - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Why cloud evolution needs a cohesive approach to succeed - CIO - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Gilead Sciences CEO on Company's Evolution and Commitment to the Bay Area - BioSpace - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Navigating the AI Quandary: Human Supremacy vs Machine Intelligence Evolution - BNN Breaking - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Denis Villeneuve breaks down the evolution of sandworms in 'Dune: Part Two' - Mashable - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Continued evolution of law improves governing capacity - Chinadaily.com.cn - China Daily - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- The Evolution of the DEX Space with dYdX's CEO Antonio Juliano - Blockster - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- Quick Commerce Evolution: 3PL Firms Aim for Same Day Delivery, Chasing Blinkit and Zepto's Lead - BNN Breaking - March 6th, 2024 [March 6th, 2024]
- What If...? Star Jeffrey Wright Addreses the Watcher's Evolution and 'Epic' Season 2 Finale - CBR - Comic Book Resources - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Evolution of the Connected Autonomous Vehicle - Ward's Auto - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- A project to capture the evolution of human culture. - Psychology Today - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- The Evolution of a Digital Soul. Beyond Code: A Journey of Heart and | by Mark Randall Havens | Dec, 2023 - Medium - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- 4 Clues That Reid Is Finally Returning In Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 2 - Screen Rant - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Evolution of Samoyed and Kitten's Friendship Delights Internet: 'Wholesome' - Newsweek - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Crypto Evolution: Pullix (PLX) vs OKB (OKB) & KuCoin (KCS) - Crypto Reporter - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Alfa Romeos mediocre F1 season heralded its era of evolution: Prime Tire - The Athletic - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Beyond The Uniform: 10 Years of Evolution in SYNC Performance's Custom Program - SkiRacing.com - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Why SZA's evolution into a popstar has earned her recognition as artist of the year - Salon - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- AI in 2023 Rises, Falls and Evolution - Finance Magnates - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Indonesia's Indosat pursues evolution from telecom to tech company - Nikkei Asia - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- EdTech Evolution: 3 Stocks Educating the Next Generation - InvestorPlace - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Informa Tech Interview with Huawei about voice evolution and innovations at 5G Core Summit 2023 - Informa Tech ... - Light Reading - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Looking ahead: What will the DeFi evolution look like in 2024? - Ledger Insights - Ledger Insights - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Why Cat Bohannon wrote 'Eve, How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution' | India News ... - IndiaTimes - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- The smart-design evolution of the laboratory space - pharmaphorum - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- The WILD Evolution of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TMNT (VIDEO) - FandomWire - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- The supernatural invades American museums via indigenous artifacts - Why Evolution Is True - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Baleen Whales First Evolved Large Body Size in Cold Southern Waters, New Fossil Shows - Sci.News - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- The Evolution of Identity in Taiwan The Diplomat - The Diplomat - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- From the Archive: The Evolution Of Hockey Pools - The Hockey News - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- 'X-Men: Evolution' Is Better Than 'X-Men: The Animated Series' - Collider - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Unveiling the Silver Screen: The Evolution of Celebrity Nudity in Cinema - The Hype Magazine - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Are Humans Still Evolving? 'Maybe More Rapidly Than Ever,' Says Scientist - Newsweek - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- The Intersection of Real Estate and Fintech: Evolution, Impact of Policies, and Global Dynamics - CXOToday.com - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Kyle Richards' Style Evolution: Her Best Looks - Us Weekly - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 2's "Deeper Secrets" Teased By Aisha Tyler - Screen Rant - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- Saturday: Hili dialogue Why Evolution Is True - Why Evolution Is True - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- NBA 2K24 MyTEAM New Year Resolution Adds 14 Evolution Cards - ClutchPoints - December 31st, 2023 [December 31st, 2023]
- dive into the history of NASA's logo evolution from the space ... - Designboom - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Resolving the puzzle of same-sex sexual interactions - Nature.com - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- The History and Evolution of Black Friday And How It Got Its Name - Yahoo Life - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Evolution of Terran R, with Tim Ellis (Relativity Space) - Payload - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]
- Brownell Raves About Breakout Junior's Evolution - The Clemson Insider - November 8th, 2023 [November 8th, 2023]