Male mosquitoes have a wing beat frequency of about 600 Hz, females 400 Hz. Yet, when they mate, they are matching tones not at this fundamental frequency but at a harmonic near 1200 Hz. The problem is that the literature reports that male mosquitoes can hear only up to a few hundred Hz and females are completely deaf! Ron Hoy and his postdoctoral associate, Ben Arthur demonstrate how they determined that both male and female mosquitoes can detect tones up to 2000 Hz.
Ronald Hoy is the David and Dorothy Merksamer Professor in Biology and the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior.