Mosquito Magnets?

Only female mosquitoes bite, as they need the blood proteins, to produce their eggs. Both male and female mosquitoes, however, boost energy reserves by drinking nectar from flowers. One might think that unwashed folk (natural odours) would be better 'mosquito magnets' for female mosquitoes than counterparts who had washed, using soaps. Some very preliminary results, on this issue, were presented in a Virginia Polytechnic and State University study. The study only involved 4 'volunteers', each being asked to provide 5 fabric samples, worn as sleeves. One sample, they had worn whilst being unwashed, whereas the remaining 4 were donned after they had used different, commercially-available soaps (Dial, Dove, Native and Simple Truth). Fabrics were used, rather than people, as female mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide, when folk breathe out. Mosquitoes, landing on the fabric, were counted. Counter-intuitively, use of soaps, sometimes made the samples more attractive to mosquitoes (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/10/soap-can-make-humans-more-attractive-mosquitoes-study). The authors speculated that, perhaps, florally-perfumed soaps, attracted, by signalling the potential presence of nectar. It's unclear, however, whether the sex of the mosquitoes were determined. There seemed to be a possible interaction between body odour and use of particular soaps. Some folk became more attractive, after using one soap, and less attractive with another. Gender and age of the volunteers are also likely to be important. This study (more like a project), needs to be massively expanded and refined, if these results are to prove meaningful.