Figure 1.

Examples of insect calling and courtship songs. (a) An example of cricket calling song from Gryllus bimaculatus. The 1.5-s sound recording is shown at the bottom (black), and the constituent sound frequencies over time are shown in the corresponding spectrogram (top). Time bins of 20 ms were used in the spectrogram. Cricket songs often consist of a series of pure-tone sound pulses grouped into chirps, which are then repeated at a regular rate. (b) An example of 1.5 s of grasshopper calling song from Chorthippus biguttulus. Time bins of 22.7 ms were used in the spectrogram. Grasshopper songs often contain broadband pulses grouped into syllables. (c) An example of 1.75 s of fly courtship song from Drosophila melanogaster. Time bins of 40 ms were used in the spectrogram. Fly songs often consist of nearly pure-tone sine song interleaved with trains of brief pulses (pulse song). In panels a–c, the dotted box on the left indicates the region enlarged on the right. (d) The intended receivers of these songs must detect and analyze frequency, timing, and intensity cues to gain information about the sender, such as species, sex, and quality, and then decide whether and how to respond.