Attraction, feeding, and repellency responses in mutant strains of Aedes aegypti.

In a laboratory olfactometer, 12% of female Aedes aegypti with a marker gene for red eye (re), 0.7% of females with a marker gene for white eye (we), and 54.1% of females with normal (norm) eye color were attracted to odor from a human hand. When a synthetic attractant blend was used in place of the hand, the attraction rate was 7%, 0.3%, and 35.4%, respectively. On average, re females required significantly less time (76.8 sec) than we (189.6 sec) or norm (176.7 sec) females to locate, land on, and probe human skin but no difference was found between mosquito strains in the time required for females to bloodfeed to repletion on a restrained guinea pig. Differences among mosquito strains in the repellency of 15% diethyltoluamide (deet), 6.65% deet, and 10% citronella were not significant.