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Background   Anopheles albimanus  is a malaria vector in Central America, northern South America and the Caribbean. Although a public health threat,  An. albimanus  precopulatory mating behaviors are unknown. Acoustics play important roles in mosquito communication, where flight tones allow males to detect and attract potential mates. The importance of sound in precopulatory interactions has been demonstrated in  Toxorhynchites brevipalpis ,  Aedes aegypti ,  Culex quinquefasciatus  and  Anopheles gambiae ; convergence in a shared harmonic of the wing beat frequency (WBF) during courtship is thought to increase the chance of copulation. To our knowledge,  An. albimanus  precopulatory acoustic behaviors have not been described to date. Here, we characterized  An. albimanus  (i) male and female flight tones; (ii) male–female precopulatory acoustic interactions under tethered and free flight conditions; and (iii) male-male acoustic interactions during free flight.    Results  We found significant increases in the WBFs of both sexes in free flight compared to when tethered. We observed harmonic convergence between 79% of tethered couples. In free flight, we identified a female-specific behavior that predicts mate rejection during male mating attempts: females increase their WBFs significantly faster during mate rejection compared to a successful copulation. This behavior consistently occurred during mate rejection regardless of prior mating attempts (from the same or differing male). During group flight, males of  An. albimanus  displayed two distinct flying behaviors: random flight and a swarm-like, patterned flight, each associated with distinct acoustic characteristics. In the transition from random to patterned flight, males converged their WBFs and significantly decreased flight area, male-male proximity and the periodicity of their trajectories.    Conclusions  We show that tethering of  An. albimanus  results in major acoustic differences compared to free flight. We identify a female-specific behavior that predicts mate rejection during male mating attempts in this species and show that male groups in free flight display distinct flying patterns with unique audio and visual characteristics. This study shows that  An. albimanus  display acoustic features identified in other mosquito species, further suggesting that acoustic interactions provide worthwhile targets for mosquito intervention strategies. Our results provide compelling evidence for swarming in this species and suggests that acoustic signaling is important for this behavior.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (10.1186/s13071-019-3648-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Precopulatory acoustic interactions of the New World malaria vector Anopheles albimanus (Diptera: Culicidae)