17 April 2011
Attention: Mosquitos Evolve Silent Attack!
Not that I ever liked that whining sound of a female mosquito zeroing in on a landing spot. It was nonetheless reassuring to me that I was afforded a last defense, especially at night. With a sheet or other covering for the lower body, exposed head, shoulders, and arms were close enough to the ears to hear a hovering blood-sucker and aim a swat in the general direction.
Last night in a lodging near Fougamou there was no sound. Whether based on sound science I’m not sure, but I believe that the whine is produced with the wings, and only by female mosquitoes, functioning to attract males. Silence could spell evolutionary death if you can get food but not sex, but that made little difference to me in the night.
All of this will need verification. A research project awaits. Of course, it is possible that my sixty-year-old eardrums no longer have an empathetic resonance to match the love song of Gabonese blood-suckers.
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