Terminology of Insect Repellents

Smell is fatal for repellents intended to be used in jungle warfare, but, provided it is pleasant, it may even be an advantage in civilian use. Owing to the importance attached to long duration of effectiveness for military purposes, research on repellents during the war has tended to develop a type of repellent with very high boiling-point and hence, almost as a corollary, less effective at a distance than some more volatile repellents. 

To help foster scientific perceptions, Dethier - defined repellents as any stimulus which elicits an avoiding reaction and made a further distinction, in terms of the physical state of the chemical, by recognizing contact repellents and vapor repellents meaning those that have to be touched by the insect or simply detected in the air. Differentiating these modes of exposure remains challenging, as 

Abbreviations and grammatical types of words are denoted as follows adj. = adjective amer. = American spelling cf. = compare e.g. = for example eng. = English spelling n = noun pi. = plural ref. = refer to sing. = singular and vb = verb. Bold words have their own entries in this glossary. 

2-undecanone methyl nonyl ketone (CAS number 112-12-9) repellent derived from tomatoes, commercialized as BioUD, affecting mosquito odorant receptors differently from deet and picaridin. 

CAFIK Continuous Action Flying Insect Killer. 

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G. B. White, Terminology of insect repellents. In Insect Repellents, Principles, Methods and Uses. ed. M. Debboun, S. P. Frances, and D. Strickman, pp. 31 7, Boca Raton, FL Taylor Francis, 2007. 

The use of terminology in the field of repellents aims to create a unique and useful vocabulary to describe mosquito behavior in response to chemicals. As our knowledge of mosquito behavior has increased, the desire to introduce new terms to describe and categorize these behaviors has also increased. Consequently, the field of insect-chemical interactions and insect behavior is rife with terms that attempt to either describe behavioral reactions (effects) or delineate the mediating mechanisms involved (causes). The smaller, more general set of existing terms has been strained... 

The terms repellent, irritant, excitant, and stimulant were commonly used to describe an insect s behavioral response to insecticides, but new terms were frequently introduced while existing definitions were broadened to cover as many aspects as possible. Some of the existing terms, such as repellent and irritant, were considered to be too vague to distinguish between neurotoxic effects and regular sensory inputs, and a new discussion arose regarding the terminology used for insect-insecticide interactions. ... 

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