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Tree cricket megaphone

A closeup of a tree cricket on cloth next to a much smaller insect and a piece of bark
Glenn Marangelo
/
Glenn Marangelo

In nature, insects come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Even within the same species, body size and other characteristics can vary considerably from one individual to the next.

For male insects, when it comes down to passing your genes on to the next generation, it’s generally the bigger, stronger males that have the most success in attracting the females. But for those lacking in stature, you can often make up for it in surprising ways.

Take the tree cricket. Known for their rather loud mating calls, smaller (and therefore quieter) tree crickets are at a disadvantage when broadcasting their love songs. But what these smaller crickets lack for in size is more than compensated by their ingenuity. Something that proved baffling to scientists …literally.

Not the confusing kind of baffling. We’re talking about the amplification of sound.

While tree cricket baffling was initially described in the 1970’s, it was not until more recent studies explained the details behind the mystery of what was going on.

Lacking the ability of their larger counterparts to loudly profess their desire to mate, small tree crickets were observed chewing holes in the center of a leaf and sticking their head and forelegs through the opening.

With their noisemaking wings now positioned at the center of this do-it-yourself megaphone, the diminutive tree crickets were able to double or triple the volume of their calls. The bigger the leaf used, the louder the results, and the more alluring their calls were to the ladies.

So, while conventional wisdom has always told us that in nature it’s the biggest and the strongest that earn the right to mate, we now understand that it’s really the biggest, the strongest, OR the most inventive.

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