You’re settling in for a nap.

[buzzing mosquito] Just as you drift off … [buzzing mosquito] That’s the sound of a female mosquito’s wings.

[buzzing mosquito] Shoo!

She’s on her way to bite you.

When Aedes aegypti females dig in,  they can transmit dangerous diseases, like yellow fever and dengue.

Only females bite us.

She needs your nutritious blood to make her eggs.

Of course, she also needs a date.

An aerial romance.

Scientists are studying how exactly mosquitoes hook up.

The sound of a female’s wings flapping  helps a male find her.

It turns out, male mosquitoes are really good listeners.

My, what hairy antennae you have!

His antennae give him exquisitely sensitive hearing.

And for him, sound is the stuff of life.

As he flies, he can beat his wings over 1,000 times per second.

This churns out a whiny tone,  with the loudest frequency around 600 hertz.

[buzzing mosquito] A female beats her wings slower, with her loudest frequency around 400 hertz.

[buzzing mosquito] Check this out.

If you blast a tone around 400 hertz out of your headphones, a male is drawn in like a magnet.

[electronic tone] Even this electronic sound does the trick.

The male hears the difference  between his sound and hers.

[electronic tone] First, he’s gotta go where the ladies hang out.

So, even though he doesn’t bite you, he makes the rounds at one of their favorite lunch spots.

Your ankles.

Our foot stink attracts them.

When she flies by, her wings move the air,  which moves his antennae and all its hairs.

This triggers sensors inside these round pedicels at the base of his antennae.

His ears … between his eyes.

The sensors – 16,000 of them – send information to the brain.

That’s as many sensory cells as we have in each ear.

He follows his ears to a female.

[buzzing mosquitoes] But, buzzkill ... [buzzing mosquito] She just kicks him away.

It turns out, this happens a lot.

In one experiment, researchers tethered females to strands of hair so they could film them flying in slow motion.

[buzzing mosquitoes] They found that males get rejected 85% of the time.

[buzzing mosquitoes] Ouch!

If a male doesn’t get the boot, he moves to face her and hangs on to her with his legs.

Then he curves his abdomen towards her and uses these tiny claspers to attach to her body ... and mate in midair – for up to 30 seconds.

[buzzing mosquitoes] She only mates once.

Then she finds a small pool of water and lays her eggs right above the surface.

They become aquatic larvae ... … then, grow into pupae.

A few days later, an adult pulls itself out.

From air to water and back to the air again.

Great, more mosquitoes in the world.

By studying how mosquitoes listen carefully to find a mate, maybe scientists can mess with their buzz.