Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Monday, February 06, 2012

On a more pleasant note, lets turn to the BBC for ancient katydids

Jurassic cricket's song recreated
Just like modern bush crickets - also known as katydids - the Jurassic insects produced music with their wings. A "plectrum" on one wing was dragged along a microscopic comb-like structure on the other.

This produces a continuous "chirp" as the male insects rub, or "stridulate" their wings in a scissor-like motion. Dr Zapata described this stridulation as similar to playing a tiny violin.

By looking at the wing structures, he explained, "I could estimate that the animal made pure, musical tones".

Such a single-note tone would have transmitted efficiently - a regular wave of sound penetrating a noisy environment cluttered with vegetation. This would have allowed a female cricket to detect a male's song from tens of metres away.

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