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

Abstract

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.