If a piece of electronic music could not only prevent mosquitoes from biting people frequently, but also make them "die off their offspring", would you listen to it? The researchers started to play a famous golden song on their mobile phones, and something magical happened. With

If a piece of electronic music could not only stop mosquitoes from biting people frequently, but also make them "cut off their offspring", would you listen to it?

This is an experiment done by a doctoral team from a university in Malaysia . The researchers first tied a poor little hamster in a box with suitable temperature and humidity, and then put a hungry magnetic into the box. Aedes aegypti . The researchers observed that when faced with a living hamster, the female mosquito still chose to slowly explore around it. After finding the right time, it would use its long mouthparts to bite the hamster. This process would last about 30 seconds. time.

Then... the music starts!

The researchers started to play a famous golden song on their mobile phones. Something magical happened. With the blessing of electronic music, the female mosquito seemed a little dizzy. It usually only takes 30 seconds, but now it takes 3 minutes to successfully bite. In other words, compared to a quiet environment, loud music is likely to affect mosquitoes' receptors or reduce their appetite.

In addition to reducing the "appetite" of female mosquitoes, under the influence of this magical golden song, the number of matings between female mosquitoes and male mosquitoes is also significantly reduced. The researchers continued based on the above experiment. They put countless pairs of mosquitoes into the same environment and observed their mating conditions.

"On the willow branches above the moon, mosquitoes come around after dusk." Dusk is a good time for mosquitoes to "talk about love." Female mosquitoes first flap their wings to attract the opposite sex, and the male mosquitoes will flap their wings vigorously in response to attract the attention of the female mosquitoes. If the female mosquitoes are not satisfied, they will kick them away; on the contrary, when they look at each other correctly, Eyes will start to reproduce.

Under normal conditions, male mosquitoes will go through six steps: encounter, chase, contact, be kicked away by female mosquitoes, chase again and mate. Researchers found that only 14.5% of male mosquitoes were able to overcome many difficulties and successfully pass on the family line.

The 6 Steps of Mosquito Courtship

Then, the same old tricks are repeated...the music starts!

The researchers changed a group of mosquitoes to accept the baptism of music, and found that the blessing of the Divine Comedy significantly affected the communication between male and female mosquitoes. It felt like a pair of lovers were in the room holding hands and preparing to express their feelings to each other, but suddenly they heard someone knocking on the door outside, ruining the original atmosphere. In the end, the two mosquitoes failed to come together.

Why can electronic music prevent mosquitoes from falling in love?

This is strange. Could it be that after hearing the music, these mosquitoes were afraid that their "privacy" would be peeped by others, so they gave up mating? Of course not. In order to find out the reasons behind this, Malaysian researchers began a series of investigations.

First, they asked a question, do mosquitoes have ears, and how do they hear sounds? Mosquitoes are clearly able to hear sounds, as shown by how music hinders mosquito mating. However, mosquitoes do not listen with their ears, but with the two long flagella on their heads, which are covered with a lot of fluff. When external sounds come, the sound waves will change the flow speed of the air, and the mosquito's flagella and villi can sense this.

Mosquito’s sound-sensing organ

So, how are these two unrelated actions, listening to music and reproducing offspring, connected?

Now we have to talk about how mosquitoes choose their mating partners. We hate mosquitoes in life. In addition to hating them for biting and sucking blood, what’s even more annoying is that they always “buzz” in our ears and “chirp” incessantly. In fact, this is not the sound of mosquitoes. , but the sound of their wings flapping.

Female mosquitoes actually flap their wings to court a mate. When male mosquitoes feel the "call" of female mosquitoes, they also start to flap their wings in response. In order for female mosquitoes to feel their love, male mosquitoes must vibrate their wings 1.5 times as often as female mosquitoes before they can be matched; if male mosquitoes fail to meet the requirements, they will lose their right to choose a mate. This behavior seems to It can be understood as a "perfect match" in the mosquito world.

All of the above seems normal, but the emergence of Grammy golden music has changed everything. Under this kind of high-pitched music with ever-increasing frequency, female mosquitoes will become extremely excited, and then speed up the vibration frequency of their wings .

The normal vibration frequency of female mosquito wings when flying is 389Hz, but under the interference of music, this value will increase to 400hz or even 500hz.

In order to obtain the right to mate, male mosquitoes must keep up with the vibration frequency of the female mosquito's wings. This is a very painful and even impossible task, because the vibration frequency of the male mosquito's wings still needs to be 1.5 times that of the female mosquito. will get attention.

In most cases, when hearing such a high vibration frequency, male mosquitoes tend to mistake them for the same sex and give up their courtship behavior. At this time, the male mosquitoes are probably thinking: "Why is there not a single female mosquito in the nightclub today?"

If this situation persists for a long time, then the mosquitoes in this place may really "cut off their offspring."

electronic music kills mosquitoes? I choose the more brutal method

So, is this electronic mosquito killing method really effective?

In the long term, electronic mosquito killing can indeed suppress the reproduction of mosquito populations, but the operation is too cumbersome and lacks feasibility. Just imagine, we install countless speakers in the green belt of the community. Every evening, when mosquitoes start courting, this song by the famous American electronic musician Skrillex suddenly comes from the speakers. The platinum hit "Scary Monsters and Beautiful Elves". From the time I have dinner to the time I go to bed, I keep playing the single on repeat, and no one can bear it.

SKILLEX

If you don’t believe it, we can first feel its heavy metal sound quality.

Please listen to the song "mosquitoes cut off their descendants" ↓↓↓

Therefore, to kill mosquitoes at home, you have to use simpler and cruder methods. Mosquito coils, insecticides, electric mosquito swatters are all used. Are you still worried that you can't kill the mosquitoes?

Of course, for a country or region, it is not that simple to control the mosquito population. Now, both my country and the United States have adopted the method of "releasing more mosquitoes" to control mosquito populations to solve infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever caused by mosquitoes.

After hearing this, you will definitely feel confused. There are already many mosquitoes in summer, and more mosquitoes are released. Is this because they are afraid that the frogs will not have enough to eat, or because they are afraid that people will be bitten less?

Actually, releasing mosquitoes requires a lot of knowledge. For example, the "American Mosquito Factory" has decided to release 2.4 billion genetically modified mosquitoes into Florida and California from 2022 to 2024. These mosquitoes are all non-biting male mosquitoes, and they have been injected with a "lethal gene".

When female mosquitoes mate with them in nature, the offspring will inherit this gene. If the "lethal gene" breaks out in the offspring of mosquitoes, they will not survive to adulthood.

The process of eliminating the population of genetically modified male mosquitoes

It is understood that before this, this company has released more than 1 billion genetically modified mosquitoes into the nature.

Some Americans are opposed to this because they are worried that the uncertainty of genetically modified technology may bring greater disasters to mankind. On the one hand, they feel that the "lethal genes" of genetically modified mosquitoes may fail after many generations, and even more powerful "super mosquitoes" may be developed; on the other hand, everyone is worried that genetically modified mosquitoes may produce infectious diseases more powerful than dengue fever and malaria. viruses, in turn threaten human security. Who is right and who is wrong is difficult to judge at the moment.