(NaturalNews) A major species of malaria-carrying mosquito avoids the smell of chickens, according to a new study conducted by researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, published in Malaria Journal.

The study suggests that living in close proximity to chickens may help protect against malaria and other mosquito-borne illnesses.

"We were surprised to find that malaria mosquitoes are repelled by the odors emitted by chickens," co-author Rickard Ignell said.

"This study shows for the first time that malaria mosquitoes actively avoid feeding on certain animal species, and that this behavior is regulated through odor cues."
 

Mosquitoes refuse to bite chickens

In the first part of the study, the researchers collected population numbers on humans and domestic animals in three Ethiopian villages. They also trapped mosquitoes and tested them to determine what species they had recently fed from.

The study was performed on the mosquito species Anopheles arabiensis, one of the major sub-Saharan vectors of malaria.

The researchers found that A. arabiensis preferentially feeds on human beings and prefers to live indoors. When outdoors, however, the mosquito will also drink blood from cattle, sheep and goats. Not a single mosquito was found to have fed from chickens, however, despite the fact that the fowl were prevalent in all three villages.

The researchers concluded from this survey that chickens are not a host species for A. arabiensis, and that therefore the mosquitoes must have some mechanism for identifying chickens in order to avoid them.

To test whether the odor of chickens might repel the mosquitoes, the researchers set up mosquito traps in several separate houses. They had a single human volunteer sleep under an untreated mosquito net beneath each trap, in order to draw mosquitoes in.