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Posted by on Apr 12, 2016 in TellMeWhy |

How Does Cricket Make Its Chirping Sound?

How Does Cricket Make Its Chirping Sound?

How Does Cricket Make Its Chirping Sound? Perhaps the most familiar summer sound-maker of the insect world is the cricket. The common field cricket chirps from grasses in your backyard or from behind a warm stove in your house. Because it has no voice, the cricket must fiddle.

It makes its chirping call by raising one wing like a violin bow and drawing it over a file-like ridge on the other wing.

It is the male who makes all the noise. The female cricket is quiet. The male’s loud fiddling is done to attract the female cricket. She listens to his song with “ears” located on her front legs.

Many people mistakenly believe crickets’ signature chirp comes from their legs, but the only thing crickets get from their legs is hop-hop, not hip-hop! Look just a bit higher and you will discover it is actually crickets’ wings that create their musical melodies.

The bottom of a cricket wing is covered with teeth-like ridges that make it rough. The upper surface of the wing is like a scraper. When crickets rub the upper and lower parts of their wings together, they create a chirping sound called “stridulating.”

Content for this question contributed by Sharon Drop, resident of Monessen, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, USA