EVOLUTIONARY CHANGE IN CRICKET ACOUSTICAL COMMUNICATION

Abstract

1 This is not to say that sound waves play no role in the defensive or flight behavior of crickets.On the contrary, both the cerci and the subgenual organs of the middle tibiae (d.Pumphrey, 1940; Wever and Vernon, 1959) respond to high intensity, low-frequency vibrations, principally when these are substrate-transmitted, but also when they are air-transmitted if the intensity is sufficiently high.But crickets do not broadcast sounds in these connections, and they are not known to utilize their stridulatory signals or their tibial auditory organs in escaping from predators or in any other kind of interactions with other species.These devices have evolved together in a very specific fashion in connection with the sexual activities of each species.