In theme with Valentine’s Day, scientists have discovered more behind the annoying buzzing of mosquitoes: there is bug love, or rather, mosquitoes singing in perfect harmony when choosing a mate.
The study was conducted on the mosquito species Aedes Aegypti, which is known to carry mosquito-borne disease like Dengue Fever & Yellow Fever.
Researcher Ronald Hoy from Cornell recorded wing-flapping frequencies in both male and female mosquitoes. Anytime a mosquito buzzes, it generates a fundamental tone based on wing beats per second. But in addition to that dominant “buzz,” that humans hear, harmonics are naturally generated. The study found that tone-matching prevailed in pairs. When a tethered female mosquito was moved past a stationary male, the wing-flapping frequencies changed.
In nearly 70 percent of the pairs, both mosquitoes adjusted their wing-flapping speeds (fundamental frequency) so that their so-called harmonics matched up in a particular way. A harmonic is a multiple of a fundamental frequency. So the second harmonic of 430 Hz would be 860 Hz.
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