We use cookies to ensure the functionality of our website, to personalize content and advertising, to provide social media features, and to analyze our traffic. If you allow us to do so, we also inform our social media, advertising and analysis partners about your use of our website. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to deny or allow. Please note that based on your settings not all functionalities of the site are available.
Further information can be found in our privacy policy.
Recent Comments
The fact that females are open (receptive?) to novel sounds from males - presumably a genetic change in itself? - means that purring gets accepted, I assume. But it must have some key elements of the previous signal for females to recognise? Still wondering how the changes in both signaller and receiver get hooked up together again? Fascinating research. I will read more deeply and try to include your findings in a book I am writing on Insect Courtship.😊
Ray Cannon
We are also really interested in these patterns and questions! I have a much older paper showing that female crickets in Hawaii are much less discriminating than those from other parts of their range, and there is a bit of work on plastic responses to living in silence (versus acoustic environments that include lots of ancestral song) that suggests females may be even more relaxed in terms of their mating requirements under those circumstances. So, we think there are a few good reasons that females in this system might be receptive to novel signals in this system. We're following up with some neurophysiology work now to try to figure out what crickets (and flies) are actually hearing and which components of the novel songs are sufficient to get a response from females - stay tuned!! We would love to be included in your book :)
Robin