Small Bugs Big Sounds
Step outside on a warm summer night and the air is alive with sound. Chirping, buzzing, whining, humming. What’s making all that racket?
The culprits are often no longer than your little finger—crickets, cicadas, and other insects hiding in the trees and grass, calling out for love.
Insect Instruments
How do bugs make their music? Sound is all about getting the right vibrations into the air. And insects have come up with some pretty clever tricks to get their music just right.
Crickets and katydids chirp by rubbing a stiff strummer along a line of ridges, called a file. The strummer twangs each ridge in the file as it passes, just like when you
