Insect Ears and Acoustic Communication

Insects produce and respond to a diversity of “sounds” including substrate-borne vibrations as well as air-borne sounds that we are capable of detecting with our ears (and some that we are not). The mechanisms of insect hearing are diverse. Virtually every major part of the insect body has been modified to perform sound detection of some sort in different species of insects. The most sensitive insect ears are so called “tympanal” ears. Many of these ears have evolved to detect the high frequency emissions used by bats to echolocate. In this lecture we will examine the diversity of insect ears. I will also bring tapes of insect substrate and air-borne calls.

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