Strong attraction of male mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti) to humans

Abstract

Female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes integrate multiple sensory cues to locate human hosts for blood meals. While male mosquitoes do not blood feed, male Ae. aegypti swarm around and land on humans in nature. Basrur et al. (2020) generated male Ae. aegypti lacking the fruitless gene and discovered that they gained strong attraction to humans, similar to female mosquitoes. The authors assume that host-seeking is a female-specific trait. However, all experiments were performed under confined laboratory conditions which are unable to detect long-range attraction. We used semi-field experiments to demonstrate robust attraction of male Ae. aegypti to humans. Our observations refute a key assumption of Basrur et al. (2020) and raise questions around conditions under which fruitless prevents male host-seeking. Male mosquito attraction to humans is likely to be important for mating success in wild populations and its basis should be further explored.