Mosquito Mating Is All About Harmony

It's an experience we've all had at least once, and if it hasn't happened to you, we sure hope you get to experience it, at least once, and soon: you meet that extra special someone, and even upon the very first encounter, it feels as though your two hearts are singing as one, in perfect harmony.

As reported by LiveScience, replace "hearts" with "wings," and it's pretty much the same deal with mosquitoes.

That high-pitched whiny buzz produced by a mosquito provides an evolutionary benefit that exceeds the cost the noise exacts by giving it away as it approaches its next blood meal victim. According to British researcher Gabriella Gibson of the University of Greenwich, mosquitoes will select a mating partner based on a perfect harmonic match between the pitch of their wing buzz and that of their potential mate.

The principle at play is dissonance, and if you've played an instrument or sat through a grade school band concert, you've experienced it. When two different but complementary tones are produced (let's take, for example, middle C on the piano, and the next highest G, a perfect harmonic fifth), even though the sound wave vibrational signatures of the two tones are not the same, they are suitable enough to interact well with each other. (This is, in a nutshell, the basis of musical harmony as we experience it as listeners.)

Raise or lower the pitch of one of the tones ever so slightly and the sound waves will clash. We can hear it, and we can at times even feel this vibrational incompatibility. This is dissonance.

And this is how mosquitoes decide upon a mating partner: if their wing pitches match up harmonically, then the time just might be right for hot mosquito love. If the two potential partners experience dissonance between their imperfectly matched wing buzzes, they will modify the pitches by changing the speed of their wings until they get a harmonic match or give up altogether. As reported by LiveScience, the harmonic match is not possible either for mosquitoes of the same sex or of different species.

Photo courtesy of VitVit, via Wikimedia Commons