Add This Song To Your Summer Playlist To Keep Mosquitoes Away

Could it be too good to be true? Could The perfect campfire playlist keep the mosquitoes away from your campsite? That’s what researchers in Malaysia are saying anyways. They did a study that found the Skrillex song, “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” is able to alter the behaviour of mosquitoes.

Here’s the breakdown on how it works; mosquitoes use sound to communicate, so by playing a Skrillex song the researchers hoped they could interfere with the bug’s transmissions. It’s sort of like trying to FaceTime with a bad internet connection because some guy in a lab coat is binging the new season of Queer Eye in the other room.

It worked too! The mosquitoes in the study that were listening to Skrillex were less active when it came to feeding and mating that those that weren’t jamming out to anything at all.

But why Skrillex? Why that one song? The researchers say they picked that song due to it’s “loudness and pitch”. So maybe after some more tests we could have a ‘Campfire Playlist’ that might not be the most relaxing music, but you won’t have to deal with the ‘skeeters’ when you’re toasting your marshmallows.

There has been the conversation about the negative sides to altering the mating behaviour of a species, but this could just be the beginning of a new way of insect control for science.