After two African villages started using mosquito nets to fight malaria, the local mosquitoes seemed to change their biting habits to avoid the barriers, according to a French study.

Insecticide-treated bed nets are considered a key weapon in the global fight against malaria, which is transmitted by parasite-carrying mosquitoes and kills more than 650,000 people a year, according to the World Health Organization.

In the study, which appeared in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, French researchers examined mosquito behavior before and after all households in two villages in Benin were given insecticide-treated nets.

They found that mosquitoes seemed to change their hours of "peak aggression" from 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. to around 5 a.m. three years after nets were put up. And in one village, the proportion of mosquito bites inflicted outdoors rose.

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Source: NBC News