Why do yellow clothes attract more flying insects?

Expert of this article: Yang Chao, PhD in Chemistry, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Summer is coming

Wear brightly colored clothes when going out

It feels more like summer

But recently many netizens have reported

Wearing a bright yellow coat

Especially easy to attract small flying insects

Seeing swarms of bugs clinging to clothes

I have intensive phobia.

…

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Why are yellow clothes more likely to attract small flying insects?

Are these small flying insects harmful to the human body?

What to do?

You will know after reading the article

Are yellow clothes more likely to attract small flying insects?

This starts with the insect's tropism. Tropism is the movement of insects towards or away from certain stimuli. Simply put, insects will fly in the direction of the environment that attracts them, such as temperature, light, chemicals, etc. There are habits such as thermotaxis, phototaxis, and chemotaxis.

If the environmental factors are what the insects like, it is a positive tendency, for example, moths and termites have a tendency to move toward light. Environments that insects dislike will lead to negative tendencies, such as cockroaches, which have a negative tendency toward light, so they generally do not like to appear in bright environments. The tendency of insects is a "survival habit" that has been preserved through evolution and is a hereditary characteristic.

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Similarly, many insects have a tendency to certain colors. Aphids, thistles, green leafhoppers, whiteflies, tobacco whiteflies, leafminers, yellow flea beetles, fungus gnats and many other pests are all sensitive to yellow and have a very strong tendency to yellow.

The Institute of Plant Protection of Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences once conducted an experiment in which they placed six different colored sticky insect boards in the greenhouse, namely yellow, green, blue, red, purple and pink. They found that the yellow sticky insect boards caught the most tomato whiteflies, followed by the green sticky insect boards and the blue sticky insect boards, while the red, purple and pink sticky insect boards caught fewer tomato whiteflies. This shows that in addition to preferring yellow, whiteflies also prefer green and blue. The same insect can like multiple colors at the same time.

Are these flying insects harmful to humans?

The most common "yellow-attracting" insects in our lives are aphids and thrips. If you wear bright yellow clothes and walk into the territory of aphids or thrips, your clothes will be covered with these small flying insects in a short while. The insects stick to your clothes and make them dirty.

So, are these flying insects attracted harmful to the human body?

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There is no need to worry too much about this. Apart from causing claustrophobia and disgust, aphids and thrips are not obviously harmful to the human body. They do not bite the human body and do not parasitize on the human body. However, some types of thrips may secrete acidic liquid, which makes people itchy. Just apply some cooling oil.

Of course, if you don’t want to be targeted by these little flying insects, you’d better not wear bright yellow or bright green clothes and go to places with many plants.

What can insect color attraction be used for?

Since the visual organs of different insects have the characteristic of color avoidance, sticky insect boards can be used to effectively control pests and diseases in agriculture.

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After years of experiments, scientists at Ingel Corporation determined through spectral analysis that a special yellow color is most effective in attracting insects. They then used this special yellow color with a special glue and added insect pheromones to develop a highly effective yellow sticky insect board that is very effective in killing pests.

In addition, the negative attraction of insects to colors can also be used to control pests. For example, aphids have a positive attraction to bright yellow, but a negative attraction to silver-gray, so yellow sticky boards can be used to lure and kill aphids, and silver-gray plastic films can be used to repel aphids.

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