BioAcoustica is a free, open repository of wildlife sound recordings from the Natural History Museum, London.
Taxonomic index of the BioAcoustica collection
Acoustic and biological measurements in the BioAcoustica collection
Recording annotations from ann-o-mate
The specimens that recordings are of, from the collections
Where the specimens that recordings are of were collected, not where the sound was recorded
| lab recording, 17/8/1990, 26°C (Kenwood KX880HX with AKG D202, tape: S-MES90, tape no. KW32:01.00-10.00, noice-reduced) | 2:03 |
| 375:7 Meconema thalassinum(323) | 0:56 · W. J. Reynolds |
| 375:8 Meconema thalassinum(323b) | 13:09 · W. J. Reynolds |
| 375:9 Meconema thalassinum(324) | 7:33 · W. J. Reynolds |
| 375:10 Meconema thalassinum(325) | 7:50 · W. J. Reynolds |
| 390:1 Meconema thalassinum(326) | 7:57 · W. J. Reynolds |
| 390:2 Meconema thalassinum(327) | 15:55 · W. J. Reynolds |
| Meconema thalassinum |
Both pairs of wings are raised upwards until they are perpendicular to the body, and one of the hind feet is drummed on the substrate (e.g. the surface of a leaf). The other hind leg is extended backwards to act as a support. The drumming is extremely rapid and is in very short burts of less thn a second. There are usully a number of these burts, the first ones being of shorter duration than the remainder. The whole process lasts no more than a few seconds. During the drummin the abdomen also vibrates, but is held clear of the surface on which the insect is resting.
There are some literature references to the males being able to produce a soft stridulation, but it seems that the main mode of communication is vibratory. The males issue a series of bursts of drumming on the substrate with one hind foot.
The remarkable nocturanl 'song' of this insect is not produced by stridulation but by a rapid drumming of one of the hind legs on teh substrate. It is clearly intended for conduction through the substrate and so the airborne sound produced is incidental and very quiet. To produce the sound the male raises both pairs of wings more or less perpendicularly to the body and vibrates one of the hind legs so the that its tarsus is drummed on the surface of the leaf, twig or any other substrate that the male happens to be using. The drumming is in short bursts of up to a second or slightly longerand these are almost always in sequences of up to seven bursts, separated from other such sequences by intervals of at least several seconds (3-15 s in the songs studied). Each sequence is usally composed of a combination of shorter and longer bursts, with the shorter ones preceeding the longer ones. Each shorter burst usually consists of 3-8 impacts and lasts for about 0.07-0.20s, while each longer one usually consists of 30-50 impacts and lasts for about 0.7-1.3s. The impact repetiton rate, in both shorter and longer bursts, is usually 3-40/s at temperatures up to 25°C, but can be as much as 60/s or more at higher temperatures. The number of short and long bursts in a sequence is very variable: 2-3 short ones followed by 1 or 2 long ones is a common patterm, but there can be as many as 5 of either kind (though not in the same sequence) and some sequences lack short bursts completeky. The interval between successive bursts lasts about 0.2-2.0s. The quality of the airborne sound depends on the substrate. Drumming on a twig is extremely faint, but if a suitable leaf is used the sound can sometimes be heard from a distance of several metres.
Although the males have no stridulatory organ, they produce a very characteristic song: they drum with a hind leg on the substrate (e.g. a leaf), producing a purring sound audible from about 1m. Usually there are several such bursts of drumming in a series of short bursts followed by one to three longer ones, e.g., 'tr-tr--tr-trrr-trrr'.