Musicians Among Insects

Most of us wake up to the songs of birds, be they the common crow, sparrow or the more exotic tinkling calls of the red-whiskered bulbul. But have you ever heard insects calling?

- Katie Bagli

Insects make chirping, hissing, squeaking, sighing, droning, buzzing or humming sounds. The songs of some insects are produced at a frequency that is beyond the hearing range of us humans, but we know that they are calling if we observe them carefully from their body movements.

Why, you may ask, do insects call? They sing ballads to their mates or they may want to assert their territories, keep enemies at bay even warn of danger. Each insect species has its own unique reasons for and ways of producing sounds.

Cicadas

The noisiest of all insects are the male cicadas. Walk into any forest, especially at the height of summer, and you will hear them singing rather a monotonous shrill, sounding like someone sighing nonstop. But for the females among them, this noise is music. Cicadas sing by vibrating a membrane called the tymbal inside their abdomen. Their abdomen actually acts as a sound box, amplifying the sound because it is more or less hollow. Imagine a choir of cicadas calling out simultaneously-they can be deafening! The females select the best singers to be their partners.

Grasshoppers