By Coggin Heeringa, Interpretive Naturalist, Crossroads at Big Creek, Inc.
This time of year at Crossroads at Big Creek, any time of day, but especially in the evening, the cricket chorus can be quite musical. And folks who participate in upcoming Evenings at Crossroads Programs will certainly enjoy their concerts.
Crickets don’t make their music to entertain Crossroads visitors, but rather, to attract mates. As in many creatures, only the males produce mating calls. To chirp, they use their wings.
The male cricket has a very thick vein on each wing. This vein has somewhere between 50 and 300 microscopic teeth on it. When the cricket pulls this toothed vein across the wing, it makes a noise, rather like the sound you would make if you pulled your thumb over a comb, only louder. The “vibration creation” is called stridulating.
According to nature writer Sylvia Johnson, the crickets raise their wings at 45-degree angles to their bodies while they are stridulating. The space between the raised wings and the insect body creates a kind of echo chamber that makes the chirps louder. The crickets’ stridulations are amplified by the transparent portion of the wing.
Of course, male crickets could chirp their little wings off and nothing would come of it if the females did not hear. And female crickets are NOT all ears. Insects don’t have ears … at least not like ours. They have tympana, eardrum-like organs on their front legs. And tympana must work, because when males call and hold still, the females locate them, even in tall weeds.
Once a male is found by a female, he changes his tune and chirps courtship songs in order to entice the female into mating. Because the rhythms of each cricket species is slightly different, females inevitably find Mr. Right. And next year, their offspring are sure to be chirps off the old block.
Thursday evening, August 11, Summer Explorers will meet at 6:30 for a program called “Insects and Other Invertebrates.” Our summer naturalist will unveil the beautiful and fascinating world of winged and crawling insects.
Our Evenings at Crossroads Program on Thursday, August 18 at 6:30 will be Nature Journaling 101. You can join Program Director Corey Batson to explore how to use art, writing and your own senses to understand the landscape. This program is free on open to the public.
Crossroads at Big Creek Learning Center and Nature Preserve is located at 2041 Michigan. Crossroads is a 501(c)3 organization committed to offering education, conducting research and restoration, and providing outdoor experiences to inspire environmental stewardship in learners of all ages and from all backgrounds. We welcome your support! Become a member of Crossroads by mailing a contribution to P.O. Box 608, Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235, or donate online at crossroadsatbigcreek.org
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