Further Investigations into the Function of the “Mirror” in Tettigonioidea (Orthoptera)

Publication Type:Journal Article
Year of Publication:1967
Authors:Bailey
Journal:Nature
Volume:215
Questão:5102
Pagination:762 - 763
Date Published:Dec-08-1967
ISSN:0028-0836
Abstract:

From the calculations of Pierce nearly two decades ago, students of the production of sound in bush crickets have assumed the area of thin cuticle on the right tegmen known as the “mirror” to be acoustically important (Fig. 1). Pierce's attribution of a resonant function to this membrane was challenged by Broughton and Dumortier. Dumortier suggested that the whole tegmen is responsible as an acoustic coupler, not only the mirror. Broughton, working on the decticine, Metrioptera roeselii (Hagenbach), found that the frequency spectrum of one individual was not obligatorily changed by coating the mirror with a deadening film of latex. His results have stimulated further work of the same nature on two members of the Conocephalidae, Conocephalus discolor (Thunberg) and Homorocoryphus nitidulus nitidulus (Scopoli). Both these animals, like M. roeselii, have a well-defined spectrum, but their peak frequencies are at 28 kc/s and 15.5 kc/s, respectively.

URL:http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/215762a0
DOI:10.1038/215762a0
Short Title:Nature
BioAcoustica ID: 
Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith