Wherever you live, you probably have to combat the world’s deadliest animal: the mosquito.
Humming away right before a deadly swat out of hand, those needles of the skies appear to be always just beyond reach. However, new research is discovering how these pesky thieves sneak away with their red freight–and how we could get better at fighting the scourge.
Some mosquitoes are the size of paperclips and weigh only a couple milligrams. Despite bellies full of blood, they are difficult to detect. However, other insects, like fruit flies, also seem dainty.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Netherland’s Wageningen University teamed up to investigate the behavior of these vexatious vectors using the super-slow-motion footage.
By observing hundreds of specimens of Anopheles coluzzii mosquitoes using a high-speed camera, the scientists discovered that mosquitoes begin flapping their wings about 600 times per second in preparation for takeoff. Then, they gently push off into the atmosphere with their spindly legs, levitating themselves to security.
From the time you notice you have been bitten, it is too late.
“They push off so softly that you can never detect them” says lead author Florian Muijres. “It’s a very challenging thing to do.” By contrast, the team found, fruit flies jump up and frantically beat their wings in a bumbling technique that betrays their location.
“Instead of going fast, [mosquitoes] take their time, but they accelerate the entire time so that they reach a final velocity pretty much the same as fruit flies,” coauthor Sofia W. Chang told Berkeley News. “That is something that might be unique to mosquitoes, and maybe even unique to blood feeders.”
The study’s results may be useful in the future for managing mosquito-borne illnesses, says Ryan Carney, an emerging explorer and assistant biology professor at the University of South Florida. The A. coluzziimosquitoes used in this experiment were clean and sterile, but in the wild, they can carry malaria.
From here, it may be worth exploring flight dynamics in Aedes aegypti and Culex mosquitoes, which can carry Zika and West Nile virus, respectively, Carney says.
Moreover, finding ways to fight mosquitoes feels, even more, pressing in the aftermath of this year’s unusually intense hurricane season.
As an example, when Hurricane Maria ripped through Puerto Rico, high winds and flood wiped out most of the region’s mosquito population at first. However, the storm left behind pools of stagnant water which turned the U.S. territory to a mosquito paradise, and thousands of residents are still living without reliable roofs, windows, and ac.
If scientists are better able to understand how mosquitoes fly, they may have the ability to help design more efficient traps that can take care of large populations.
“The more you know,” Carney says, “the more we can do with that information.”
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