Pest Control .co.uk

One of the best pest control techniques is prevention.  We might complain about our British Summer sometimes, especially when it is raining, but mosquitoes are loving it.  They have been on the increase this summer, and you might have been unlucky enough to notice if you have been bitten.  Often they’ll get you when you’re sleeping so you won’t notice until the morning when you suddenly have an itch that you really shouldn’t scratch.  There are of course ways to combat this, such as a mosquito net.  Now, however, there is a new one.  Pretend to be their predator.

Mosquitoes could be warned off if you smelled like a predator

As recently reported, using the natural predators of a pest is a tried and trusted pest control technique.  But you might well be thinking that you actually are a predator anyway – if you see one, you’ll squat it.  Ideally though, you don’t want them anywhere near you in the first place, which is what this new spray is said to achieve.  The theory is that you spray this concoction on yourself, then although it is odourless to the human nose, to a mosquito it smells like a backswimmer.  A backswimmer is an insect which lives around water and feeds off the larvae of mosquitoes and other biting insects.  The reason it lives around water is that mosquitoes use stagnant water to lay their eggs in, where they become larvae which swim before finally becoming adult mosquitoes.  Therefore, when mosquitoes smell these backswimmers, they tend to stay clear.

Of course a mosquito is not going to confuse you with a pool of stagnant water, but when it is collecting blood, it is always for their eggs.  Generally, mosquitoes live off nectar but when they are ready to lay eggs they need extra nutrients, and that is when they collect blood.  Therefore it stands to reason that they do not want to be around the predators of their larvae, even when they are just feeding for them.  If they thought it out properly, perhaps they would not be so concerned, but then again the logical capabilities of a mosquito are questionable.

The problem with using sprays at the moment as a pest control technique is that so much is needed to be used.  The advantage of this spray over other sorts of mosquito-repellent sprays is that not so much of it should be necessary.  Mosquitoes are not going to want to come near if they get a whiff of the backswimmer anywhere near the area so all over application should not be necessary.  Nevertheless, at the moment one of the problems with it is that it does not last very long, but research is being done so that it can last longer, removing the need for frequent reapplication.

This spray is being developed at Haifa University in Israel, and the lead scientist, Professor Leon Blaustein, claims that it could also be used to limit their breeding practices.  This of course would make it an even more appealing method of pest control.  One of the reasons for a rise in the number of mosquitoes in Britain at the moment is the increasing appeal of water butts.  As it is stagnant water, it is a perfect place for mosquitoes to breed.  Blaustein has suggested that if this chemical is sprayed at sites such as this, mosquitoes will not want to breed there so their numbers will be limited.   If something of this sort is not achieved, unfortunately the number of mosquitoes may increase even more.

Tags: chemicals, mosquitoes, new technique, pest control, pest control news, predators, sprays

Written by Paul Simmons

Paul has been working in the pest control field for 6 years and enjoys writing about contemporary events relating to pest problems and solutions in the UK