How Mosquitoes Find Love

Posted by Alex in Animal, Science & Tech on January 10, 2009 at 7:36 am


How do mosquitoes find love? Turns out, they serenade their mates! Scientists at Cornell University found out by supergluing mosquitoes on to a tiny tether and then suspending them in the air:

The male mosquito’s buzz, or flight tone, is normally about 600 cycles per second, or 600-Hz. The female’s tone is about 400-Hz. In music, he’s roughly a D, and she’s about a G. So the male brings his tone into phase with the female’s to create a near-perfect duet. Together, the two tones create what musicians call an overtone — a third, fainter tone at 1200-Hz. Only then will the mosquitoes mate.

Christopher Joyce of NPR has the story: Link (with video clip)

Previously on Neatorama: 30 Strangest Animal Mating Habits


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COMMENT

5 comments to "How Mosquitoes Find Love"

  1. Marilyn Terrell
    January 10th, 2009 at 8:02 am

    How nice! Unlike the deep-sea squid with its flesh-burrowing sperm:
    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/12/081222-squid-sex-weird .html

  2. sw
    January 10th, 2009 at 11:42 am

    i'm really glad i'm not the student who had to glue the strings to the mosquitoes. now that i think of it, i want my own grad student to boss around.

  3. Ess
    January 10th, 2009 at 3:18 pm

    Can someone explain how the 400Hz and 600Hz frequencies are adding to make the 1200Hz overtone pitch?

  4. sam
    January 10th, 2009 at 4:56 pm

    So the key is to produce a tone that cancels out the mosquitos tone of 1200Hz. No more mosquitos!

  5. PaulVI
    January 10th, 2009 at 9:14 pm

    @Ess: I'm thinking LCM (lowest common multiple). The waveforms will summate with that 'beat' frequency (1200Hz).


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