There is a precise threshold beyond which seasonal annoyance stops being such and becomes something more serious, something that deserves an explanation worthy of the name. That threshold, in Italy, is reached every year between April and October, when all you have to do is open a window, any one, in any corner of the Peninsula, to receive an unsolicited visit accompanied by that buzz that has the power to ruin an entire evening.
For years the issue has been dismissed with dubious efficacy and under-the-breath curses, but the most recent scientific research has decided to get serious: mosquitoes find us by following a precise sequence of signals, almost elegant in its efficiencyand understanding how it works also changes the way you can defend yourself.
How mosquitoes find us
In March 2026 a study published in Science Advances – also taken up by MIT – brought a volunteer into a room with one hundred specimens of Aedes aegyptithree-dimensional cameras, visual spheres and controlled jets of carbon dioxide. The result, more than an experiment, resembles the transcription of a well-tested hunting strategy. When the call was predominantly visual, the mosquitoes made quick passes around the target. When the chemical signal dominated, the breathing, in essence, they slowed down, they went back, they approached with an almost irritating patience. When sight and CO₂ were added, the trajectories became real orbits: the target was locked on, and from that moment the chances of being hit rose considerably.
The picture is completed by fitting this study with previous researchwho in the meantime had already clarified several steps. A search on Nature Communications had shown that the host’s odor – particularly exhaled CO₂ – acts like a switch that amplifies the salience of certain visual signals, especially wavelengths close to the orange and red tones of human skin. A study on Nature he added that Aedes aegypti it also perceives the infrared radiation emitted by the human body, using it to orient itself at medium distances. Then, as the target gets closer in the sensory field, humidity, skin vapor and convective heat come into play. Ambient light alone matters much less than we have always thought.
There is a detail that is worth remembering, because it is ignored quite consistently in summer conversations: It is exclusively females that stingsince blood is necessary for the development of eggs. Males, in this rather unpoetic chapter of biology, do not participate. And it is precisely for this reason that the discussion goes beyond the nocturnal itch and touches public health on a scale that is anything but negligible: mosquitoes remain the most lethal animal for human beings, and the global toll of the diseases they transmit, according to MIT, exceeds 770 thousand deaths per year. A number that significantly reduces the narrative of seasonal hassle.
In Italy in 2025: 472 cases of chikungunya and 223 of dengue
The story of the mosquito as a mere terrace nuisance holds less and less hold, and the data of recent years demonstrate this with a clarity that leaves little room for comfortable interpretations. The National Institute of Health maintains special surveillance on dengue, chikungunya, Zika, West Nile and other arboviruses: the 2025 national summary records 472 confirmed cases of chikungunya, of which 384 are indigenous, and 223 confirmed cases of dengue, with 4 indigenous. These are numbers that shift the focus of the discussion, quite clearly, from individual annoyance to collective healthcare.
The tiger mosquito is active from April to October
ECDC reports that Aedes albopictus It is established in 16 European countries and 369 regions, with clear growth over the last decade, and links this spread to a higher probability of local outbreaks. Italy, within this geography, now occupies an outpost position, and the 2025 data have made it much more visible even to those who, until recently, filed every summer under the generic heading of “difficult season”. The tiger mosquito is no longer an exceptional or localized presence: it is a stable tenant, with an activity calendar that goes from April to October and, in warmer areas, tends to get even longer.
What really works against mosquitoes
The concretely useful part of all these discoveries begins at this point. Knowing that the mosquito intercepts breathing first, then heat, then humidity and finally visual details also changes the approach to defense. The smartest systems currently available on the European market work exactly on this logic: traps that imitate human breathing with CO₂ and synthetic skin odors, designed to intercept the signal before it reaches the real target. On the practical and daily side, however, the most concrete action remains the one that the ISS has been recommending for years: eliminate stagnant water, treat manholes and external containers when necessary, use effective repellents based on DEET or icaridin respecting the label instructions, protect windows with mosquito nets in good condition and choose more covering clothing during the hours of greatest vector activity.
Solutions of natural origin also find their place in this framework, provided that they remain far from the easy fairy tale. Bats also eat mosquitoes, some studies confirm this, and their ecological role has real weight. Serious control, however, depends above all on the management of larval outbreaks and the consistent use of individual protection. The saucer abandoned on the balcony matters more than any green slogan. The forgotten bucket in the garden is worth more than a thousand discussions in front of a scented candle. And this is where science returns something precious: it takes away the mystery from that nocturnal buzz and puts a concrete margin of action back into the hands of those who listen, in the only season in which, every year, we rediscover ourselves transformed into half the neighborhood’s favorite buffet.
