Built in sound amplifier helps male mosquitoes find females

The ears of male mosquitoes amplify the sound of an approaching female using a self-generated phantom tone that mimics the female’s wingbeats, which increases the ear’s acoustic input by a factor of up to 45,000, finds a new UCL-led study.

The team responsible for the study, led by Joerg Albert have been studying disease-carrying mosquitoes, and hope their findings, published in Nature Communications, could help design acoustic lures to control the spread of deadly diseases.

Read the rest of the feature on the UCL News page

Links

• Research paper in Nature Communications
• Professor Joerg Albert's academic profile
• Dr Matthew Su's academic profile
• Dr Marta Andrés' academic profile
• UCL Ear Institute

Images

• Top: Aedes aegypti (Yellow fever mosquito), with male on left with bushier antennae. (Credit: E. A. Goeldi (1905) Os Mosquitos no Pará, Source: Wikimedia Commons)