Expert: These are the scents that attract ticks to you

Ticks are patient hunters, often waiting on vegetation for a host to pass by before latching on. Biologist Didrik Vanhoenacker explains that warmth, carbon dioxide from exhaled breath, and specific body odors are the primary attractants for these eight-legged creatures.

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They usually don't go out looking for their prey, but if an animal or person lies down on the ground to rest, they can crawl short distances to reach a potential blood host.

While ticks typically don't actively search for prey, they can move short distances if a potential host, like a person or animal, rests on the ground. Their advanced sensory organ, Haller's organ, located on their front legs, detects these cues. The odors that attract them often stem from bacteria on the skin breaking down sweat, producing substances like lactic acid or butyric acid.

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Ticks react to different substances. Often, these are substances formed when bacteria on the skin break down sweat, for example. It can be lactic acid, butyric acid, or similar odors. The combination of scents makes the ticks think 'mm, here is food'.

Although the exact impact of scent on a tick's choice of host is unknown due to numerous other factors in nature, Vanhoenacker suggests that masking natural body odors could make individuals less attractive to ticks, much like insect repellent aims to deter mosquitoes. The most common tick species in Sweden, Ixodes ricinus, accounts for about 95 percent of tick bites.

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It's a bit like how mosquito repellent works. By having scents that mask our odors, it should make us less attractive to mosquitoes, for example.