Key Takeaways
Enjoyable outdoor activities can have the sport take aim out of them if you ’re being eat alive bymosquitoesor gnat . So rather than remain indoors , many people search for ways to get disembarrass of the undesirable pests – includingbug zappers . Bug zappers , or , by their more technological name , electronic insect - control systems or electric - discharge worm - ascendancy systems , attract insects with light and then vote down then with a " zap " of electricity . They use ultraviolet lighter , or Ne or mercury lighting , which insects seem to be draw to . A transformer turns regular 12 - volt electric current into 2,000 - plus volts in the mesh screen around the light . The space between the concealment is about louse - sized , so when an louse flies in , it completes the galvanizing tour and is killed by the strong current . Bug zapper have the power to put an end to more than 10,000 bugs in just one evening .
However , a bug zapper might not be the best answer to your mosquito job . Timothy Frick and Douglas Tallamy from the University of Delaware see through 14,000 insect kill in six zappers in dissimilar spots around Newark , Delaware , and found that only 31 were biting gnat or mosquito – that ’s less than one - quartern of one percent . The true statement is that mosquitoes are not attracted to ultraviolet light in the way that many other insects are , making the usual character of bug zapper almost useless in getting free of them . Worse , the sheer act of non - harmful insects killed by the zapper can take a lumbering price on the ecosystem .
There are electronic hemipteron zapper that make do specifically with mosquitoes by emitting the pheromone octenol , sometimes in combination with carbon dioxide . It ’s the carbon copy dioxide in our lather and breath that attracts the biting dirt ball , so this type of insect control system attracts mosquitoes . or else , you could cut the mosquito universe by purpose of pesticide . And if you favour to distance the mosquitoes rather than killing them , there are insect repellants , ranging from spray - ons for your skin to citronella candles and torches to burn by your breeze table .
