In plain English, they made mosquitos like repellent.

Tldr: Repelln’t.

Could this already be happening out in the wild?

I use a lot of bug spray and I am still swarmed sometimes.

As I understand it, DEET just prevents biting as they don't like the taste of it, and they taste with their feet. Thus, it doesn't do much to prevent initial attraction.

Edit: thought I'd include a link to a study about this as it's not well known. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)...

I believe DEET interferes with their ability to locate prey actually.

There may be multiple ways it works, but we don't fully understand all of them. However, here is one study about the feet to show I'm not spouting AI generated bullshit: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(19)...

I hope these mosquitoes were not released in the wild.

The simple answer would be to add a natural strongly repellent gentle oil to the DEET spray.

Maybe an effective answer would be to combine DEET with an insecticide.

Mosquitoes attracted to DEET will die because of the insecticide. Usually, for personal protection, we tend to prefer repellents, as we don't want to get bitten, killing the mosquito after the fact is not very useful. But here, the idea is to put some evolutionary pressure against mosquitoes not repelled by DEET.

There are also repellants other than DEET. Icaridin being the best alternative. It is almost as effective as DEET without many of its drawbacks. Some essential oils too, as you said, but I don't think any of them have the effectiveness of icaridin or DEET.

There are no natural oils that have been proven to stay effective, or are effective as DEET.

Go ahead, hose yourself down with Lemon oil, citronella, oil, or lemon eucalyptus oil. They simply do not work.

A couple years back, I spray some DEET on my shoes, 5 seconds later, a tiger mosquito tried to bite me on that spot (and yes on the shoe itself, just insane to see it trying ).

They already loved that shit.

Spray made from lemon eucalyptus works[1]. Not as well as DEET, but it works.

[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/health/insect-repellent/oil-...

I don’t understand why sharing an objective study with good news would be downvoted, someone please explain?

I’m not saying you have to use it; it’s good news for people who have concerns about other chemicals. It works—less effectively, but it works.

“Repellants containing (..) oil of lemon eucalyptus have also been found to be effective.”[1]

[1] Iowa Department of Health, “Controlling Spread of West Nile Virus“ https://hhs.iowa.gov/health-prevention/providers-professiona...

I have seen the same behavior on this site. Insightful information gets downvoted to -2, and useless comments that merely "feel good" get upvoted to +8.

I think the theory is that each post identifies with a certain topic, e.g. DEET, which identifies with a cultish subset of users surrounding that topic. There is no broad academic curiosity among the cult's members, and they suppress all competing topics as to them they represent other cults.

And remove the DEET from it, apparently… at least until it loses its appetitive charge.

Until, of course, they learn to like the replacement oil. At which point, break back out the DEET!

Yeah, I would not be surprised if this learned behavior is passed on epigenetically. This is almost like gain of function research potentially.

At that point just skip the deet.

that explains. I was always wondering why in Siberia (where i worked for 2 summers back then at university times) coming out from house with freshly applied DEET you're getting covered with mosquitos - i was attributing that to the especial ferociousness of the mosquitos there - yet it sounds like the smell of DEET for them in those towns may have become like a BBQ smell for us :)

A bit like how capsaicin was evolved to prevent things being eaten by mammals, but... Well.. humans came along and developed a taste for it.

"Evolution! Can you give me capsaicin, to deter mammals? I want birds to spread my seeds!"

https://youtu.be/1fW2uTRdUJU

They got the ultimate seed-spreading, since we farm them.

Freshly marinated in DEET

Damn, were you working at Tselinoyarsk?

It was fun, but not a bad idea. Are there mosquito mousetraps, or mosquitotraps?

Yes, they are mostly attracted to CO2 I think. So some traps that burn propane to attract them. Others I've seen are basically a screen over a fan with a block of dry ice. They use those to collect for like an hour then weigh the mosquitos and test for diseases in a swamp.

It's OK, we still have picaridin

Picaridin is the better choice as well. DEET is gross stuff that ruins many materials used for outdoor clothes and gear

I read the paper - if they can train them to like deet this way, picaridin will be child’s play.

DEET should ruin things less if you stick to 35-40%. There is practically no benefit in going higher anyway. Those using 100% are asking for damage.

Picaridin gives me worsened tinnitus, so I can't use it unless maybe I slowly try to condition myself to it over a week. DEET doesn't.