Science doi:10.1126/science.1166541 (2009)

The buzz of flying female mosquitoes acts as a mating signal to attract males. When Ronald Hoy and his team at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, listened closer, they found that when both sexes of Aedes aegypti get together, they change their buzz pitch to match, producing a courtship duet. But rather than duo at their usual wing beat frequencies — of around 400 hertz for females and 600 hertz in males — the mosquitoes take their acoustics up a notch to a shared harmonic frequency of 1,200 hertz.

Male mosquitoes were previously thought to be deaf to frequencies above 800 hertz. The researchers then examined the 'ears' of A. aegypti, and confirmed that both sexes can hear up to 2,000 hertz. They call for more research on the mating behaviours of the mosquitoes, which carry yellow fever and dengue virus.