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Attraction of female Uranotaenia lowii (Diptera: Culicidae) to frog calls in Costa Rica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2012

Art Borkent  and
Peter Belton
Art Borkent*
Affiliation:
Research Associate, Royal British Columbia Museum, American Museum of Natural History, and Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad
Peter Belton*
Affiliation:
Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A 1S6
*
1Corresponding author (e-mail: aborkent@jetstream.net).
3E-mail: belton@sfu.ca
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Abstract

During a survey of frog-biting corethrellid midges in Costa Rica, we collected 79 female Uranotaenia lowii Theobald, mosquitoes known to bite frogs, from seven lowland localities using the recorded calls of a frog. The calls of male barking tree frogs, Hyla gratiosa LeConte, were repeated about once per second, lasted about 0.15 s, and had a fundamental frequency near 450 Hz. We suggest that this frequency is within the range of acoustic sensitivity of the female mosquito antennae. Males of several families of Nematocera use sound to detect flying females of their own species, but we believe ours is the first observation of female mosquitoes being attracted by the sound of a host.

Résumé

Durant des études des espèces de Corethrellidae, moucherons qui piquent les grenouilles au Costa Rica, nous avons attiré 79 femelles d'une espèce de moustique, Uranotaenia lowii Theobald, une espèce reconnue également pour piquer les grenouilles, de sept localités de terrain bas. Nous avons utilisé les chants enregistrés des mâles de Hyla gratiosa LeConte, la rainette aboyeuse, d'une durée de 0.15 s, repetés une fois par seconde et d'une fréquence fondamentale d'environ 450 Hz. Nous proposons que cette fréquence peut être detectée par les antennes des femelles. Plusieurs familles de Nematocera utilisent le son pour attirer les mâles envers les femelles volantes, mais nous croyons que nos observations sont une première qui démontre qu'une femelle moustique peut être attirée par les chants de son hôte.

Type
Articles
Information
The Canadian Entomologist , Volume 138 , Issue 1: Adaptations and Constraints: a Symposium in Honour of Richard Ring / Adaptations et contraintes : un symposium en l'honneur de Richard Ring , February 2006 , pp. 91 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © Entomological Society of Canada 2006

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