As soon as summer rolls around, mosquitoes buzz and swarm all around, making us irritated. You might have also noticed that mosquitoes bite some people more compared to others. While we wake up from a night of camping to find our ankles and wrists aflame with bites, our tent mates get maybe one bite. It turns out there’s actually a reason why we get bitten so often.

“Why do mosquitoes always bite me?”

There are lots of theories about why some of us are more prone to mosquito bites than others. Statistically, only about one in ten people are particularly attractive to mosquitoes.

It is not your blood, or perfume, or whatever other reasons you may think that makes you delicious for mosquitoes. It’s actually down to the types of bacteria that exist on your skin.

Mosquitoes use smell to find us. Since everyone has slightly different bacteria on their skin, everyone smells a bit different, and it turns out some of us smell better than others.

It’s not just our bacterial friends who attract these bugs towards us. Mosquitoes are attracted to the carbon dioxide in our breath. As a result, people who simply exhale more of the gas over time generally attract more mosquitoes than others. And this is one of the reasons why children get a bit less often than adults, on the whole.

In addition to carbon dioxide, mosquitoes find victims at closer range by smelling the lactic acid, uric acid, ammonia and other substances expelled via their sweat, and are also attracted to people with higher body temperatures. Hence, mosquitoes tend to love people who are exercising.

The mosquito is one of the world’s most dangerous creatures, aiding the spread of dengue fever, zika, chikungunya and malaria.

Watch the video below and know more about what makes mosquitoes love some of us more than others.