Mosquitoes buzz and fruit flies don’t-a comparative aeroacoustic analysis of wing-tone generation

Abstract

Crepuscular mosquitoes, which swarm in low light conditions, exhibit a range of adaptations including large aspect-ratio wings, high flapping frequencies and small stroke amplitudes that taken together, facilitate the generation of wing-tones that are well-suited for acoustic communication. In the current study, we employ computational aeroacoustic modeling to conduct a comparative study of wing-tone and flight efficiency in a mosquito (male Culex) and a similar sized flying insect: a fruit fly (Drosophila). Based on this analysis, we show that pound-for-pound, a mosquito generates wing-tones that are a factor of about 3.4 times more intense than a fruit fly, and the mosquito is more efficient by a factor of about 3.7 in converting mechanical power into acoustic power. The wing-tones for the mosquito are also more tilted in the forward direction, a characteristic that would be more conducive for acoustic signaling during a mate chase. The simulation data also shows that the specific power (mechanical power over mean lift) of the mosquito is nearly equal to that of the fruit fly, indicating that the adaptations that facilitate wing-tone based communication in mosquitoes, do not seem to compromise their flight efficiency.