Mosquitoes prefer the scent of beer drinkers and sunscreen avoiders, Dutch field study finds
A pop-up lab at a Dutch music festival found female mosquitoes landed more often on volunteers who reported drinking beer, sharing a bed or skipping sunscreen; researchers attribute the effect to scent changes, not ethanol.
Dutch researchers say female mosquitoes were more likely to land on people who had been drinking beer, slept with another person the previous night or avoided sunscreen, according to a field experiment carried out at a national music festival and reported in a paper uploaded to BioRxiv.
Scientists from Radboud University Nijmegen set up a temporary laboratory at the Lowlands festival, recruited 500 attendees and exposed their forearms to cages containing thousands of female mosquitoes. Each volunteer answered questions about diet, hygiene and recent behavior, then placed an arm inside a custom-made box with tiny openings that allowed mosquitoes to smell but not bite. Cameras recorded how many insects landed on each arm and how long they stayed, and those observations were compared with a sugar feeder on the opposite side of the cage as a control.
The team reported that people who had consumed beer were about 1.35 times more attractive to the mosquitoes than those who had not. Mosquitoes also favored volunteers who had shared a bed the previous night and those who reported wearing less sunscreen or showering less frequently. No volunteers were bitten during the experiment.
"We found that mosquitoes are drawn to those who avoid sunscreen, drink beer, and share their bed," the research team wrote. The authors summarized the pattern by saying the insects appeared to have a "taste for the hedonists among us." Felix Hol, who led the study, told Dutch radio program Vroege Vogels that the attraction was likely driven by changes in body odor rather than the ethanol in beer. "People who have been drinking alcohol also behave differently, of course," he said. "At a festival like Lowlands they might also be dancing more exuberantly, which can also change their body odor."
The researchers said scent cues are a primary mechanism for host detection: previous studies have shown mosquitoes can detect human odor from tens of meters away and are highly sensitive to variations in skin and breath chemistry. The Lowlands experiment aimed to link those sensory responses to common behaviors and hygiene practices.
The authors noted limitations to the study. Festival attendees skew younger and healthier than the general population, so the sample may not represent broader demographic groups. The environment of a music festival — with high activity levels, varied ambient odors and altered sleep and drinking patterns — could also influence the results. The team recommended extending the research to other settings and populations to determine whether the associations hold outside festival conditions.
Beyond study design, the researchers emphasized that the observed preference does not mean alcohol itself is an attractant. Instead, they said, beer consumption and other behaviors may change sweat composition, body temperature or other odor-related factors that mosquitoes use to locate hosts. The study compared landing rates and duration on arms and controlled for some variables through the questionnaire, but it did not measure chemical changes in sweat or breath directly.
The paper was posted on BioRxiv and has not been through formal peer review. The authors and Hol called for further laboratory and field experiments that include more diverse participant pools and biochemical analyses to identify the exact odorants involved.
Until follow-up work is completed, the researchers said practical steps such as wearing sunscreen, maintaining personal hygiene and being aware that post-drinking changes in behavior may increase mosquito attraction could help reduce encounters with the insects. The study adds to a growing body of research on how human behavior and scent profiles shape interactions with disease vectors and underscores the role of olfactory cues in mosquito host selection.
This line of investigation could inform public health advice in areas where mosquitoes transmit pathogens, but scientists cautioned that more rigorous, peer-reviewed studies are needed before issuing definitive recommendations based on the Lowlands data.