#insect songs

[vandaliatraveler]

Idyllic wetlands complex at Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Turn up the volume to enjoy the insect serenade and bask in the serenity. This is a wonderful place to escape your troubles.

[jonnysinsectcatalogue]

Insect Songs: Dog-Day Cicada - Neotibicen canicularis & Black-Legged Meadow Katydid - Orchelimum nigripes

In today's exploration of insects and their songs, we 2 familiar species today that are quite prevalent in Ontario's summer months. Previously, we had a look at the chirping of a Fall Field Cricket and how his chirp is actually composed of individual clicks. Today, we're going to begin by first examining the tree-dwelling shriekers that seem to grow even louder when heat increases. Just as with Crickets and other Orthopterans, the large-bodied Cicadas only sing if they are male. To produce their sound, they rapidly expand and contract a membrane behind their thorax called a tymbal. Knowing this information, you can actually identify males and female by looking for the tymbals, which (in this specie) is located underneath the wing. Be very gentle when handling a Cicada in order to see this membrane. If it screeches in response, it's definitely a male! To clarify with certainty, unlike Orthopterous insects, Cicadas do not use stridulation to produce their mating call, as that process describes insects rubbing certain body parts together to produce sound. Vibrating a membrane doesn't match the description. If anything, it's more like flexing a muscle and allowing the hollow-filled body to amplify the sound so that all can hear it.

Pictured below is a typical example of how a Cicada song normally appears in audio form. It is a distinct, clear sound. Headphone warning: a Cicada's shriek can be very shrill and grating, even if the amplitude has been gently reduced.

As mentioned in this blog's 100th post, the Cicada's song appears continuous because of the tremendously rapid expansion and contraction of this membrane. The muscles controlling the membrane are so powerful that the tymbal can vibrate several hundred times per second! The faster the vibration builds (for this specie), the higher the pitch of the song becomes. That said, just as a Cricket's chirp can be isolated to clicks, a Cicada's song can be slowed down to hear the individual pulses. After slowing the screeching down by several hundred times, this is the result:

On the other side of the summer of insects, most male Katydids generate their mating calls using wing-to-wing stridulation. There are exceptions of course (such as the Drumming Katydid), but today's specie has a loud method of communication! Like its Cricket friends, the loud, continuous sound is many clicks in rapid-succession. In fact, you can actually hear the beginnings of the clicks at the start of the song before the wings suddenly accelerate and song the clicking into overdrive! Considering the role flight muscles play in controlling the wings and their noises, it's no surprise how the song can turn loud very suddenly. It's possible that the song can only be sustained in short bursts to prevent muscle damage or heat buildup, but it also may be a precaution to exposing oneself to a predator with strong hearing. The sound is prominent and alluring, for both mate and hunter alike. Pictured below is a typical example of the Black-Legged Meadow Katydid's song (headphone warning):

Do note, that while this is louder compared to the Cicada song, I was much closer to the source. If I was next to a singing Cicada, that too would have been an incredible amount of sound volume! Nevertheless, when this Katydid's song is slowed down, the individual clicks become more prominent. Looking at it immediately after slowing the tempo down a few hundred times, a quick burst of less that one second becomes nearly 45 seconds worth of clicks! To showcase this, I've included a "portal" that offers a zoomed in look at the slowed song. Each spike in amplitude is a click of the wing-scraping. Even at reduced speed, you can hear the gradual acceleration of the clicking as the song goes on (headphone warning):

Pictures were taken on August 24, 2019 (Dog-Day Cicada) with a Samsung Galaxy S4 and on September 5, 2021 (Black-Legged Meadow Katydid) with a Google Pixel 4. Audio amplitude graphs were created using Audacity and samples from the following blog videos:

Black Legged Meadow Katydid | Dog-day Cicada

[dazzelmethat]

Some crickets and grasshoppers and my thoughts about them.

I've always been interested in bugs since I was real small.. I should draw them more often.

[sunsetfly]

That one short story with callum crown and milt that directdogman posted a while ago reminded a lot about William Blake’s poem ‘The Fly.’

[thisismyideaofhumor]

Sometimes I remember that one of the JumpStart video games have a section where you play as a leafcutter ant, and one of the minigames involved running away from a parasitic fly that was trying to lay eggs in you

[hellsitegenetics]

Hi, hello, sorry to bother you! If you take requests and they are currently open, could you maybe identify any DNA strings in the song The Summoning by Sleep Token? 🤓 The frontman is a massive nerd and active lurker, and I feel like he'd get a kick out of something like this. Please and thank you 🙏

String identified:

' gt a g gt t ' gt a ta, t tg a tg A tat t ' gt , a , a T a, t at a aga Ta at t g at t t t t t ' gt , a T a, t at a aga Ta at t g at t t t 't at t' ? 't at t' ? , a ta a g G? a a t ct ? a t t t 'Ca t a g t tat 't tat c a a a a g g a ' gt a g gt t ' gt a ta, t tg a tg T tat t ' gt , a T a, t at tg t a a t g A tat t

Closest match: Panorpa germanica genome assembly, chromosome: 1 Common name: German Scorpionfly

[talos-stims]

SAY "HELLO! HONEY, I'M HOME!" / THREE VOICES COME, ALL ALONE

🕸️|🕸️|🕸️

🕸️|🕸️|🕸️

🕸️|🕸️|🕸️

[onenicebugperday]

These little guys (maybe about 15?) are all over my dill. I can't find an ID online so far!

Southern Ontario, Canada, Sep. 3, 2024

Looks like some kind of sawfly larvae as far as I can tell?

Update: Nope, Chrysomelidae larvae. See comments in the notes!

[cinematic-phosphenes]

Helaena Targaryen Aesthetic ASOIAF as paintings (20/∞)

art by Wilhelm Menzler/ Rachel Ruysch/ Miriam Escofet/ Matthjis Maris

[haii2u]

My favorite Sango outfit <3

[vinzulu]

[hannahmcgill]

The caterpillar

It destroyed its egg

Yes

YES

The caterpillar is out

[img id] Digital art of a newly-hatched monarch butterfly caterpillar crawling out of its shell for the first time. The shell is translucent, covered with dimples and ridges, with a slight sheen on top. It has a huge ripped hole in one side where the caterpillar exited. The caterpillar is a pale peach color with lines of black spines running down its body. Its legs and face are black as well. It crawls over an extrem closeup view of leaf fuzz, from a milkweed leaf. Where is our little friend headed? Text in the corner is a watermark: http://hmcgill.art [/id]

[jonnysinsectcatalogue]

Insect Songs: Fall Field Cricket - Gryllus pennsylvanicus

Throughout last week I revisited a video on this blog that showcases a crafty Cricket sheltering in a rocky hollow while singing his song. His hideaway simultaneously functioned as both protection from intruders and an amplifier for his chirping. While both listening to the audio over and over to clean it up and writing a description for its upload onto YouTube, I was reminded of one of the more important facts regarding insect noises and calls of this type. Plain and simple, what we're hearing is not one continuous sound; it is instead a series of rapid clicks/blips that coalesce into a series of chirps. It merely sounds continuous (in this case) given the speed at which the wings scrape against each other. For this post, I'd like to show you what I mean and provide an opportunity to hear the difference, but I do apologize for any background noise. The audio displayed here is a small sampling taken directly from the singing Cricket video residing on this blog. I recommend you revisit it to see this great specimen in action and observe how his chirps are made using his wings rather than his legs. And as a disclaimer, leg stridulation is more commonly associated with Grasshoppers.

Pictured below is a typical example of how a Field Cricket song normally appears when visualized in an audio format. Each chirp appears in a series of 3 amplitude spikes. Listen for yourself:

This sounds normal to our ears and is what we generally expected to hear as the weather changes to cooler temperatures. The rapid wing movement makes a cohesive, pleasant, attention-grabbing chirp! However, if you isolate one of those amplitude spikes in the series and slow down the tempo by (at least) 100%, you can start to hear the individual clicks made by the wing stridulation. The sample below has been slowed by 200% in order to make the clicks a bit more distinguishable. And so, here are the individual clicks in a Cricket's song:

Admittedly, the background noise make it sound like there is a loading delay between clicks. Rest assured, this is not the case: the audio has not been manipulated in any way other than slowing it down. There you have it: the artistry of a male Field Cricket's song. For the next post, we will turn our attention to 2 more insects that grace us with songs during the summer months. You can examine this post through the link here, which showcases Dog-Day Cicada and a Black-Legged Meadow Katydid songs!

Pictures were taken on October 7, 2019 with a Samsung Galaxy S4. Audio amplitude graphs were created using Audacity and samples from the following blog video: Fall Field Cricket

[murmel-malt]

a little doodle of Helaena with baby Maelor

[valgeristik]

sorry for a big post but i just found those again recently

huge throwback to these little things i did while bored out of my mind between calls on my tech support job i had in 2017 🌞 the phrases are whatever i could think of at the moment, from phrases i heard on calls to what i saw in google search to personal observations...

i did these with a mouse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i have not been able to replicate this style since. it will forever stay there, on that imac with that weird apple mouse and a random art app i downloaded that they later locked me out of bcs u know ur not supposed to download third party apps on work computers but i was also not allowed to have paper like what are yououuuu expecting me to do GOD i hated that place they made me work for 6 days in a row then ONE (1) ☝ day off and then SIX MORE DAYS AGAIN with sometimes less than 12 hours between shifts but i was young and stupid and didnt complain. this went on longer than i thought it would.

I was also (unsurprisingly) sososososososo depressed and this song was a big comfort (and hey, its an english one for once!)

Vetted Gaza Evacuation Fundraiser List

E-sims donation

bonus thing i like but it didnt fit in with the rest of them

not. translating everything but if u really really want to know feel free to shoot me an ask i suppose. russian knowers will find some of these funny tho. esp the всё понял, иду нахуй (it was a positive customer review on one of the calls our trainer told us abt LMAO)

[hellsitegenetics]

im a creeper minecrafts grim reaper blowin up blocks like al queueda im not a creature thatll eat ya but ill leave ya petrified peter reminds peeps of minesweeper diggin on a brick till ya die in the deep ill find ur mine ima mind reader now the mine is mine its finders keepers oh hi im a creeper so nice nice to meet ya but its not the time its time to leave now tick tock tick tock BOOM BOOM BOOM I CANT STOP SINGIN THIS BLOODY TUNE TUNE TUNE ITS GONNA MAKE MY BRAIN GO BOOM BOOM BOOM

String identified: a c cat g a c a a t a cat tat at a t a a t t gg a c t a t a a t t a c c c t t a t t t t t t t t a tc tc tc tc CAT T G T T T T T GA A A G

Closest match: Agrotis puta genome assembly, chromosome: Z Common name: Shuttle-shaped dart