Study Highlight: Butterfly Bushes Attract Mosquitoes Laying Eggs


Do you have a butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) in your yard? A recent study showed that mosquitoes tend to lay their eggs in containers of stagnant water closest to a butterfly bush.

Mosquitoes can be attracted to these butterfly bushes

In their paper, the researchers concluded that “significantly more eggs were oviposited in containers adjacent to flowering butterfly bushes than in those without a flowering butterfly bush.”

So what does this mean?

Before you run outside to burn down your butterfly bushes, it’s important to know that the cause of your mosquito worries isn’t the plant. Yes, the plant can attract mosquitoes, but it’s the stagnant water you have to worry about.

The mosquitoes in Los Angeles County (and everywhere else) love to use our man-made containers filled with standing water to lay their eggs.


More than a thousand mosquitoes can emerge from a bucket of stagnant water each week. Forget the butterfly bush, get rid of the water!


Remember, once you get rid of the standing water, you get rid of the mosquitoes.

Click here to read the original research paper.