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Researchers trap elusive male mosquitoes using siren song of females

By Mark Rigby
Professor Ritchie stands with the mosquito trap and audio lure that has been developed by researchers at James Cook University.
Professor Scott Ritchie is one of the co-authors of a recently-released paper highlighting the effectiveness of a male mosquito audio lure developed at James Cook University.(ABC Far North: Mark Rigby)
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Researchers at James Cook University (JCU) in Cairns have discovered a way to use the sound emitted by female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to capture their otherwise elusive male counterparts.

By mimicking the sound of the female mosquito's wing beats — a frequency of 485 Hertz — and playing it through a speaker, JCU researchers are catching male mosquitoes in traps that once only caught females.

One of the study's lead researchers, Professor Scott Ritchie, said male mosquito antennae were fine tuned to the sound of the female's wing beats and were immediately drawn towards it.

"The males are attracted to the song of the female," he said.

"They can pick this up from some distance so they hear her coming and then they basically go and they chat her up."

Professor Ritchie holds the components of the male mosquito lure - an Mp3 player, a speaker and a battery pack - in his hands.
The male mosquito lure is made from cheap and simple components including a circuit board that acts as an MP3 player, a battery pack and a speaker, but it is highly effective at attracting male mosquitoes into the trap.(ABC Far North: Mark Rigby)

The future of mosquito research

As known carriers of dengue fever, yellow fever and Ross River virus, Aedes aegypti mosquitoes have been studied intensively in recent years, but the ability to capture and study large amounts of males is being hailed as a breakthrough.

"There are projects where we're actually using males to control females," Professor Ritchie said.

In these projects, males are captured, sterilised and then released to unsuccessfully breed with female mosquitoes.

Professor Ritchie said there was future potential for this type of strategy to be used in conjunction with audio lure traps to control or even eradicate Aedes aegypti populations.

"If you had enough of these you might be able to trap them out," he said.

"Between the males and the females you might actually knock the population down quite a bit.

"We're not going there yet because it would probably take quite a few traps and quite a bit of money to do that."

The trap is yet to be refined enough for use by residents, who see annual outbreaks of dengue fever and other mosquito-borne diseases, but Professor Ritchie is hopeful for future applications.

"There could be a day where you had a trap that captured females and it had a little bit of background music that captured males," he said.

"We could even have it interspersed on the radio so that you could be listening to the cricket and catching mosquitoes at the same time."