Could eliminating mosquitoes' sense of hearing be the key to eliminating mosquito-borne diseases like dengue, yellow fever, and Zika? Possibly. The BBC reports researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara began by taking stock of the way mosquitoes, specifically Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, mate: in mid-air, for anywhere between a few seconds to just under a minute. The males track down a mate via the sound made by her wingbeats; a press release explains females beat their wings at around 500 Hz, and males who detect this fly to them at about 800 Hz.
As the release explains, "A mosquito's physiology reveals just how important hearing is to these insects"—males have more auditory neurons than any other insect. The scientists pinpointed a protein called trpVa that is required for their hearing and eliminated it. In a study published in PNAS, the researchers write that they shut the mutated males in a cage with females, and after three days, zero mating had occurred; wild males that were caged with females, by contrast, mated multiple times and fertilized nearly every female present. The release explains males continually look for new potential partners, but a female that has been fertilized typically won't mate again. "If they can't hear the female wingbeat, they're not interested," says study author Craig Montell.
"I think the reason why our major finding is so shocking is because, in most organisms, mating behavior is dependent on a combination of several sensory cues," said study author Emma Duge. "The fact that taking away a single sense can completely abolish mating is fascinating." (More discoveries stories.)
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