It’s the touch that finally does it when a mosquito is looking to feed, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Mosquitoes looking to feed utilize many qualities of humans to find their prey. Exhaled carbon dioxide, unique human scents and infrared radiation all play a part. But it’s not until the mosquito actually lands on us that a final decision is made, explains Johns Hopkins mosquito expert Christopher Potter.

Potter: Finally they touch us. Neurons on the legs of mosquitoes, as soon as they touch our skin they start to taste us and that's their last indication, ohh this is the human, this is what I want to bite or no this is a dog or something and maybe I'll keep going. Humans are pretty great for biting because you don't have quite as much hair on our skin, our hides aren't quite as thick. Humans tend to be around water and mosquitoes need water for their life cycles. So humans are a great source of a blood meal, they're plentiful.  :30

Potter notes that of the couple thousand plus mosquito species, just a few are exclusively human predators, while others are happy to snack on other creatures besides humans, with some only dining on frogs or chickens. These few are of course the ones associated with disease. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.