black material issues

[lymphocytosis]

I went on a trip this past June in the BWCA that was terrible for mosquitoes. I've never been on any trip where they were that bad, even when I was a kid growing up in Florida. They were very thick. I didn't notice any landing and staying on the black netting of my blackbird, or on me in particular, even though I was wearing jet black long underwear some of the time. What they did do in droves was perch on the underside of my tarp (which is light gray). One night I laid there with my head lamp and counted, not even kidding, 150 on one side before I gave up in disgust.

When I tented, I noticed the opposite phenomenon. They were attracted to the netting and stayed there. I suspect what they were really attracted to was the warmth and wind break.

[koaloha05]

Material alone or actual clothing covering a breathing CO2 & heat emitting human body?

Lymphocytosis, decades ago spent a season working for the USDA in the Northwoods of MN. Some days the mossies were so thick it seemed like you would inhale a lung full with each breath. Life was not too fun at the field camps most evenings.
Today life in the woods without permethrins & picardin would be just as "fun".

[hurtinfeet]

I too was in BWCA in June and the Mosquitoes were horrible. But like lymph said they were all over the tarp I had at the time. Well..And I could hear em from the the bottom of the hammock while I laid there..nasty things..maybe I'll go back to hitting up the BDUBB in Sept.

[OneEye]

I heard all the BWCA horror stories for the mosquitos. We got lucky on our two trips, as the mosquito counts were way down from their normal in those two summers.

[lymphocytosis]

BWCA has its consolations. I always catch a lot of fish!

[bhinson]

Sid,

I'm super allergic to mosquitoes, so I've read up a lot on them and ways to deter them. I don't recall ever reading anything about black attracting them.

Do you have something to back that up? I'd love to read more if this is the case.

It seems to be true that dark colors drow in more
Mosquitoes than lighter colors do

[olzeke]

Sid,

I'm super allergic to mosquitoes, so I've read up a lot on them and ways to deter them. I don't recall ever reading anything about black attracting them.

Do you have something to back that up? I'd love to read more if this is the case.

If you Google Mosquitoes drawn to dark colors, many articles will appear, including one from the West Nile site.

[StrawHat]

if you're in mosquito country it is advisable to avoid black materials when possible. this is especially so for shaded woods with moisture present. mosquitoes flock to black like its money.

if you hang a black hammock under a tarp with mosquitoes in the air, look out; they will find you. other colors don't suffer near as badly. the flatter and "blacker" the black, the bigger the draw. other colors generally pass unmolested.

oh, this also applies to netting. how fitting that most of it is black.

i just picked up some new hammocks, some of which only come in black. yep, they draw mosquitoes.

fyi.

sv-

Its monsoon season here and dengue cases increases during this season. Local health officials are very active again in their campaign against these dengue-carrying mosquitoes.

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/164458/D...o-avoid-dengue

.....shoot, I just purchased black ripstop for my diy tarp and hammock.

[Peter_pan]

Use an under quilt... there will be no biting through it.

Pan

[seuss]

I'll agree that wearing dark colored clothes will draw more skeeters than wearing light colored clothes, and I'll even agree that this has been proven scientifically.

But I question the validity of extending those findings beyond sunset. I doubt that hammock color plays much of a role (if any) once the sun goes down.

In the night . . . all cows are black
-Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit