Scientists finally made a research on a rare family of insects that helped them to understand how bush-crickets developed their highly specialized acoustic functions. Crickets generate their special sound for mating calls. A bush-cricket is one of the barely studied species.
A group of sensory and evolutionary biologists from the University of Lincoln, UK started their research on sound-generating organs in Orthopterans. The study was conducted with the collaboration of researchers from Canada and France. Researchers took bush-crickets and their related species for their studies because it is one of the largest acoustically active insect group in the world.
Scientists made a closer look at the small and rare group of orthopterans, named Grigs. Haglids are one of the remaining living family of ancient crickets and the member of grigs. Until the present, most of the information about Haglids were collected from the fossil remains, some of them were from the Jurassic period. In the Journal of Experimental Biology scientists have written that grigs generate the sound by using their wings.
Entomologist from the University of Lincoln's School of Life Sciences and lead researcher of the study Dr Fernando Montealegre-Z wrote in his journal,“There are less than 10 species of Grigs alive today, nearly 100 species extinct, so our research into these rare animals is very significant as it tells us a great deal about how orthopterans have evolved ”. He also explained that the sound, generated by the wings will help them to understand the evolutionary stages of bush-crickets.
Usually, bush-crickets and other common field crickets generate sounds to attract females. Scientists are focusing on the relationship between form and function in the sound-generating organs. ScienceDaily reported, crickets rub their specialized regions of their forewings to create the sound.
Grigs have many similarities with common field crickets than bush-crickets. While Grigs and common crickets use two symmetrical forewings then bush-crickets use different wing areas for sound production, as they have asymmetry in their forewings.
However, researchers found Grigs and bush-crickets have similar sound-producing areas on the wings with the help of state-of-the-art laser measurement techniques. there is a 'mirror area' on the wings of both bush-crickets and field crickets.
