You’re lying in bed at night, trying to fall asleep, when you hear it: the distinctive whine of the mosquito – a female determined to get to you and feast on your blood! But what actually is that so-irritating noise?
Well, it isn’t her humming in glee at spotting you. Rather, it is created by the beating of her wings. We have long known that different insects beat their wings at different frequencies – Robert Hooke commented on it to Samuel Pepys in the 17th century – but only now, thanks to new technology, are we are able to listen to a lot more of their subtle ‘tunes’.
Mosquitoes are some of the fastest wing-beaters: up to 1,000 beats per second have been recorded, with males beating faster than females.
