Insights

How does sound make crickets feel?

12/08/2025
Adams Face

Author:
Adam Scott, Associate

Pondering the impacts of vibration on insects and biodiversity.

Understanding how airborne noise pollution could be impacting UK wildlife is complex. Specifically challenging is how to find out what they feel.

Many terrestrial species have evolved mechanisms for hearing, independent from one another1. The same is true for tactile perception (i.e. touch)2. Consequently, there are profound anatomical and cerebral differences in how we and other animals perceive sounds and/or vibrations.

A particularly interesting group of animals to consider is insects.

Insects are the most diverse group of animals, representing more than half of all animal species3. Insects provide a complicated mix of essential ecosystem services, the most generally recognised of which is pollination, which over 80% of plant species rely on and our food supply also depends on; however, concerningly, the abundance of insects is thought to have declined by 50% or more between 1970 and 20204.

Insects can perceive their environments in fascinating ways. Nocturnal insects see a brighter world than us, as you would expect, but they also see the world more slowly and more coarsely5. Many insects have antennae that, despite their smaller brains, enable them to effectively decipher smell6, and hear (via perceiving particle velocity, as opposed to sound pressure as we do)7. While crickets for example, have auditory organs in their forelegs8. Consequently, trying to understand how insects perceive the world through intuition is irrational.

If you’re based in the UK, you might think that chirping crickets and grasshoppers (Orthoptera) are the only insects that acoustically communicate. However, insects throughout the world transmit vibrations through structures to communicate 9 10 11. We do not necessarily know how sensitive to vibration different UK insect species are, but we do know that all insects are capable of perceiving surface vibration, as they all have mechanoreceptors12. There is also some good evidence that insects likely rely on vibration to interact with their surroundings, and each other. Beetles have been shown to freeze in response to substrate vibrations13. Courting green lacewings communicate via substrate-borne vibrational signals14. Solitary bees are theorised to use vibrations to cooperatively interfere with an invading parasitoid wasp’s signals used to locate concealed hosts15. Caterpillars produce complex vibratory signals to alert each other that food or shelter is available16.

So how much does anthropogenic vibration impact insects? Currently, we have no idea. Sadly, this means we cannot say if, and to what extent if so, anthropogenic vibration is contributing to insect numbers declining. When it comes to promoting good environments for insects and biodiversity as a whole, there is a lot we know, but there is also a lot we do not know. It would be a shame if anthropogenic pollution such as sound and vibration is undoing our efforts in promoting biodiversity and it is in our interest to become more informed.

    Footnotes

  1. Manley, G.A. Comparative Auditory Neuroscience: Understanding the Evolution and Function of Ears. JARO 18, 1–24 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10162-016-0579-3
  2. Schneider ER, Gracheva EO, Bagriantsev SN. Evolutionary Specialization of Tactile Perception in Vertebrates. Physiology (Bethesda). 2016 May;31(3):193-200. doi: 10.1152/physiol.00036.2015. PMID: 27053733; PMCID: PMC5005274.
  3. Chapman, A. D. Numbers of living species in Australia and the World, 2009. ISBN 978 0 642 56860 1
  4. Wildlife Trusts. (2020). Full AFI report. https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/FULL%20AFI%20REPORT%20WEB1_1.pdf
  5. Warrant EJ. The remarkable visual capacities of nocturnal insects: vision at the limits with small eyes and tiny brains. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2017 Apr 5;372(1717):20160063. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2016.0063. PMID: 28193808; PMCID: PMC5312013.
  6. P. Puri, S. Wu, C. Su, & J. Aljadeff, Peripheral preprocessing in Drosophila facilitates odor classification, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 121 (21) e2316799121, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2316799121 (2024).
  7. Joerg T. Albert, Andrei S. Kozlov, Comparative Aspects of Hearing in Vertebrates and Insects with Antennal Ears, Current Biology, Volume 26, Issue 20, 2016, Pages R1050-R1061, ISSN 0960-9822, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.09.017.
  8. Stumpner, .A., von Helversen, .D. Evolution and function of auditory systems in insects. Naturwissenschaften 88, 159–170 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/s001140100223
  9. McNett, Gabriel & Cocroft, Reginald. (2005). Vibratory Communication in Treehoppers (Hemiptera. 10.1201/9781420039337.ch23.
  10. Virant-Doberlet, Meta & Cokl, Andrej. (2004). Vibrational communication in insects. Neotropical Entomology. 33. 10.1590/S1519-566X2004000200001.
  11. Reginald B. Cocroft, Rafael L. Rodríguez, The Behavioral Ecology of Insect Vibrational Communication, BioScience, Volume 55, Issue 4, April 2005, Pages 323–334, https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2005)055[0323:TBEOIV]2.0.CO;2
  12. Cocroft, R.B., Gogala, M., Hill, P.S. & Wessel, A. (2014) Studying vibrational communication. Berlin Heidelberg, Germany: Springer.
  13. Takanashi, T., Fukaya, M., Nakamuta, K. et al. Substrate vibrations mediate behavioral responses via femoral chordotonal organs in a cerambycid beetle. Zoological Lett 2, 18 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40851-016-0053-4
  14. Henry, C.S., Brooks, S.J., Duelli, P., Johnson, J.B., Wells, M.M. and Mochizuki, A. (2013), Obligatory duetting behaviour in the Chrysoperla carnea-group of cryptic species (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae): its role in shaping evolutionary history. Biol Rev, 88: 787-808. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12027
  15. Müller A, Obrist MK (2021) Simultaneous percussion by the larvae of a stem-nesting solitary bee – a collaborative defence strategy against parasitoid wasps? Journal of Hymenoptera Research 81: 143–164. https://doi.org/10.3897/jhr.81.61067
  16. Yadav, C., Guedes, R.N.C., Matheson, S.M. et al. Invitation by vibration: recruitment to feeding shelters in social caterpillars. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 71, 51 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-017-2280-x