Peer Rejected

rejections > chrono.DY > REJ:2026.08.29.0001

REJ:2026.08.29.0001chrono.DY (Chronodynamics)PRJ-2026-0060Vol. 9, No. 8DOI 10.5555/prj.2026.0060Status: Rejected

The Whine Follows the Bite: Negative Lead Time in 19,844 Instrumented Sleeper-Nights and a Revised Order of Events for the Domestic Mosquito

Ilsabe Rautenbach1, Duarte Espinho2, Nkechi Obiora3, Marek Zawistowski4

1. Vector Acoustics Group, Institute of Applied Hygiene, Roskilde · 2. Department of Medical Entomology, Coimbra School of Hygiene · 3. Laboratory of Contact Sensing, Grimsholm Institute of Technology · 4. Wolsey Institute for Applied Probability, Durham

Submitted and rejected August 29, 2026 · 10 pages · 6 figures · review duration: 39 minutes

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Abstract

You hear it at your ear, put the light on, and there is nothing in the room. In the morning there are bites and no insect. These are not two puzzles but one. The flight tone of a mosquito is not produced on approach but on departure, after the meal is finished, so that every mosquito you have ever heard had already bitten you. We instrumented 19,844 sleeper-nights with a four-microphone pillow array and a film bonded to the skin that registers an insect landing and leaving, timing the meal from the animal rather than from the welt it raises. The whine follows the end of the meal by (95% CI –), and no tone anywhere in the record arrives before the bite it belongs to. Of the insects caught after a recorded whine, were full of blood, and where the blood could be typed it was the sleeper’s. Whines and bites reconcile at whines per bite: every bite is announced, and nothing is announced that is not a bite. Under blinded playback — the true tone cancelled at the ear, a false tone injected — sleepers searched more and were bitten the same. Why the approach is inaudible is not a question this study can answer. The sound at your ear is not a warning but a receipt.

keywords: flight tone · blood-meal timing · point processes · lead time · vector surveillance

Cite this rejection

@article{PRJ20260060,
  title   = {The Whine Follows the Bite: Negative Lead Time in 19,844 Instrumented Sleeper-Nights and a Revised Order of Events for the Domestic Mosquito},
  author  = {Ilsabe Rautenbach and Duarte Espinho and Nkechi Obiora and Marek Zawistowski},
  journal = {Peer Rejected},
  year    = {2026},
  note    = {Rejected manuscript, PRJ-2026-0060},
  url     = {https://peerrejected.com/papers/the-whine-follows-the-bite}
}

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