@article {51484, title = {Song Structure and Description of Some Costa Rican Katydids (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae)}, journal = {Transactions of the American Entomological Society}, volume = {108}, year = {1982}, pages = {287-314}, chapter = {287}, abstract = {

The physical features of the calling songs of a dozen species of Tettigoniidae from Costa Rica are recorded and analyzed. A new species, Cocconotus pusillus, is described from the cloud forest.

Several forms from the understory of lowland rainforest utilize high-Q (sinusoidal) carrier frequencies in the ultrasonic range and to this end the sound generating regions of the tegmina are uniquely strengthened. Relative to other katydids, these insects show what may be adaptations for avoidance of predatory bats: elongate antennae, lowered thresholds for elicitation of defensive behaviour and a severely curtailed signal emission time. It is proposed that reduced signal dura tion has placed a selective premium on localization efficiency during pair formation. The ultrasonic pure tone carrier, functioning in conjunction with highly directional ear slits, may be an adaptation to enhance localization.

}, url = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/25078301}, author = {Glenn K. Morris and Max Beier} } @article {50909, title = {Morphological determinants of carrier frequency signal in katydids (Orthoptera): a comparative analysis using biophysical evidence}, journal = {Journal of Evolutionary Biology}, year = {2017}, month = {Apr-09-2018}, abstract = {

Male katydids produce mating calls by stridulation using specialized structures on the forewings. The right wing (RW) bears a scraper connected to a drum-like cell known as the mirror and a left wing (LW) that overlaps the RW and bears a serrated vein on the ventral side, the stridulatory file. Sound is generated with the scraper sweeping across the file, producing vibrations that are amplified by the mirror. Using this sound generator, katydids exploit a range of song carrier frequencies (CF) unsurpassed by any other insect group, with species singing as low as 600 Hz and others as high as 150 kHz. Sound generator size has been shown to scale negatively with CF, but such observations derive from studies based on few species, without phylogenetic control, and/or using only the RW mirror length. We carried out a phylogenetic comparative analysis involving 94 species of katydids to study the relationship between LW and RW components of the sound generator and the CF of the male\&$\#$39;s mating call, while taking into account body size and phylogenetic relationships. The results showed that CF negatively scaled with all morphological measures, but was most strongly related to components of the sound generation system (file, LW and RW mirrors). Interestingly, the LW mirror (reduced and non-functional) predicted CF more accurately than the RW mirror, and body size is not a reliable CF predictor. Mathematical models were verified on known species for predicting CF in species for which sound is unknown (e.g. fossils or museum specimens).

}, doi = {10.1111/jeb.13179}, url = {http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/jeb.13179}, author = {Fernando Montealegre-Zapata and Ogden, Jessica and Jonsson, Thorin and Soulsbury, Carl D.} }