The volume level of a person's voice fluctuates around 60 dB. However, it is unlikely that a human voice can compare with the volume of some animals and insects. Our surrounding world is quite unusual, and amazing animals live in it. It is interesting that some species are quiet and silent, while others, on the contrary, make too loud sounds.
Any sound above 120 dB can cause ear pain or even damage to a person. However, for the following animals, too much volume has become simply necessary for their survival in the wild. All of them are simply incredible and amaze with their amazing abilities.
Green cicada (main photo)
Many may be surprised, but these seemingly innocent and harmless insects are considered one of the loudest in the world. This species of cicada lives in coastal areas of Australia. The cicada is the world's loudest insect. The high-pitched, loud sounds emanating from male cicadas can often reach 120 dB. This sound is not only very annoying, but also quite loud and painful to human ears.
Cicadas themselves make this noise by rapidly vibrating their skeletons to attract females during mating. There are more than 200 different species of cicadas in Australia, but each has its own unique sound to help each species identify its family.
Hyena
This animal, which looks a bit like a dog, has been known to many since the release of the Disney animated film “The Lion King” as a species that constantly struggles for power with the king of animals - the lion.
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When attacking or detecting a food source, hyenas can easily make various sounds that resemble either an ominous laugh or an overly loud alarm. Sometimes the noise that hyenas make can be so loud that it can reach 112 dB.
Links[edit]
- ^ a b Morris, 2006.
- Tucker, Sandy (May 16, 2012). "Music of Canada's Bug Season". CBC Music. Archived from the original on March 1, 2016. Retrieved April 9, 2016.
- Hogue, Charles (1987). "Cultural Entomology". Annual Review of Entomology
.
insects.org. 32
: 181–199. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.en.32.010187.001145. Archived from the original on June 17, 2012. Retrieved April 4, 2016. - "Insects in Music, Art and Poetry". Oregon State University. Retrieved April 4, 2016.
- Ripert, A. Bowdoin Wang (December 31, 2010). Learning from Mickey, Donald, and Walt: Essays on Disney Entertainment Films. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-786-45957-5. Retrieved November 7, 2022.
- Billboard . Nielsen Business Media. 1985. p. 57. ISSN 0006-2510.
- Macy, Patrick. Songs around the campfire: The musical heritage of Savonarola.
Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1998. ISBN 0-19-816669-9. Page 155. - "Rimsky-Korsakov - Flight of the Bumblebee (Home Musical Assessment)". Retrieved August 21, 2012.
- » » Eric Speed, violinist, Flight of the Bumblebee, Nikon S9100, Montreal, July 22, 2011 » » . Retrieved April 21, 2012.
- "Green Hornet" . Retrieved August 21, 2012.
- Neff, Lyle. (1999). "The Tale of Tsar Saltan: 100th anniversary of Rimsky-Korsakov's Second Pushkin Opera." Pushkin Review
.
2
: 89–133. - "From the Diary of a Fly, for piano (Mikrokosmos Vol. 6/142), Sz.107/6/142, BB 105/142". Retrieved August 21, 2012.
- ↑
Kovacs, Janos, "Piano Concerto No. 3" Booklet for Hungaroton HCD 31888-91 (2000) - “What song defines the Dave Matthews Band?” . Retrieved August 21, 2012.
- Demalon, Tom. Insects in music on AllMusic
- "David Rothenberg:" The Music of Error: How Insects Gave Us Ree. The Diana Rehm Show. Retrieved April 2, 2016.
Hippopotamus
This may seem quite strange to you, but in fact, hippos that are quite cute and funny at first glance sometimes become the most dangerous animals in Africa.
Hippos are quite aggressive and are even famous for tirelessly pursuing prey at a speed of 30 km per hour. They also make quite loud sounds, which is why they are considered one of the loudest animals. Hippos grunt and moan at an astonishing volume of 110 to 114 dB.
Where does the grasshopper chirp?
Rice.
154 Where was the shot fired: right or left? But they are often powerless to determine the position of the sound source if it is directly in front or behind us (Fig. 155): a shot fired in front is often heard as coming from behind.
In such cases, we are able to distinguish only - by the strength of the sound - a distant shot from a close one.
Here is an experience that can teach us a lot. Sit someone in the middle of the room blindfolded and ask them to sit quietly without turning their head. Z
Then, taking two coins in your hands, hit them one against the other, remaining all the time in that vertical plane that cuts your guest’s head in half, between his eyes. Have the subject try to guess the location where the coins clicked. The result is absolutely incredible: the sound is produced in one corner of the room, and the subject points to a completely opposite point!
Rice. 155. Where was the shot fired?
If you move away from the mentioned plane of symmetry of the head to the side, the mistakes will no longer be so serious. This is understandable: now the sound in your guest’s nearest ear is heard a little earlier and louder; Thanks to this, the subject can determine where the sound is coming from.
This experience explains, among other things, why it is so difficult to notice a grasshopper chirping in the grass. A sharp sound is heard two steps away from you, to the right of the path. You look there, but you see nothing; The sound is coming from the left. You turn your head there, but the sound is already coming from some third place. The faster you turn towards the chirping sound, the more quickly these invisible musician jumps are made. In reality, however, the insect sits in one place; his amazing leaps are a figment of your imagination, the result of a deception of your ears. Your mistake is that you turn your head, placing it just so that the grasshopper is in the plane of symmetry of your head. Under this condition, as we know, it is easy to make a mistake in the direction of the sound: the chirping of a grasshopper is heard in front of you, but you mistakenly place it in the opposite direction.
Hence the practical conclusion: if you want to determine where the sound of a grasshopper, the song of a cuckoo and similar distant sounds is coming from, do not turn your face towards the sound, but, on the contrary, turn it to the side. However, this is what we do when, as they say, we are “wary.”
Wolf
The first thing that comes to mind when you think of wolves is that they howl at the full moon. These are simply nocturnal animals that lead an active life at night.
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Wolves only howl when they are marking their territory or trying to contact members of the pack. To do this, they simply need a very loud sound. The howl of a wolf is quite loud and can reach up to 115 dB; it can be heard even several kilometers away.
The role of sounds in the life of insects
Everyone knows that many insects can make sounds: some buzz, others creak, whistle and even sing... In the East, many hundreds of years ago, some types of cicadas were kept in special cages so that they would delight the ears of rich nobles with their songs. Among these insects were true virtuosos, demonstrating a variety of loudness, timbre and repertoire. Pampered court singers were highly valued. It was considered a special delicacy to give someone a cell with an arthropod “nightingale” as a gift. Such a gift was worthy of an emperor.
But you and I are more familiar with the free “bards” of nature - grasshoppers, cicadas, bumblebees, bees... It’s hard to even imagine a summer meadow or forest clearing without the songs of these insects. They inspired many poets, artists and even composers. But for some reason, for a long time they could not inspire scientists. Only in the 20th century. biologists began to take a serious interest in how and why insects make sounds. At the beginning of the century, the life of singing insects was studied by entomologist Zh.A. Fabr. He found that representatives of the Orthoptera order - grasshoppers and mole crickets - “talk” using the stridulation apparatus. On one wing of the insect there is a smooth and durable device (like the skin on a drum), surrounded by hard veins, on the other wing there is a strong vein with notches. By rubbing their wings, insects make sounds. Why not a violin with a bow? Other orthopterans - locusts (fillies, for example) - have to rub their legs, since their stridulation apparatus is located there. Such a device allows you to control not only the volume of the sound, but also change its timbre and frequency. Fabre believed that grasshoppers and locusts each had several dozen different songs. And Fabre considered crickets and trumpeters to be among the best “musicians” in the animal world - in their repertoire, according to some researchers, there are almost 500 different songs.
A few years after Fabre's discoveries, the Hungarian scientist Regen continued to study the role of songs in the life of grasshoppers. It is known that in the vast majority of species of these insects, females are voiceless; only males “sing”. In Regen's experiment, the female grasshoppers ignored the frantically singing gentlemen, who, seeing the females, carried out their roulades under a transparent but soundproof hood. The females saw the singers, but did not hear them, and therefore remained indifferent to them. However, when the insects were placed in different rooms and the males’ “serenades” were broadcast to the females, they became noticeably agitated. The love song was heard and received the due response.
If Orthoptera are called violinist insects, then cicadas (representatives of the order Homoptera) can be considered drummers. Their musical instrument consists of three membranes located in a large chamber on the insect's chest. A muscle is attached to one membrane, which (up to 20,000 times per second!) bends this membrane and hits the others with it. Complexly arranged resonators amplify the sound many times over. The “singing” of some species of cicadas is close in sound intensity to the roar of a steam locomotive.
In addition to grasshoppers and cicadas, there are more than 10,000 species of “talking” insects, and they conduct their “conversations” in extremely diverse ways. Some crackle the joints of their legs, longhorned beetles creak with segments of their abdomen, smooth bugs click their legs on their proboscis, butterflies make sounds by hitting themselves in the chest with a wing rib, click beetles click the joints of their heads and chest. Many insects can “talk” with their wings, vibrating them at different frequencies. The swallowtail butterfly (Papilio machaon) makes 5-6 beats per second, the mourning butterfly (Nymphalis antiopa) - 10. We are able to hear the low humming sound that hawkmoth butterflies make in flight, whose wings make 45-50 beats per second. Flying beetles also “sound”: the cockchafer buzzes, making 45-50 wing flaps per second, the dung beetle (Geotrupes vernalis) - 85-90, and ladybugs in flight flap their wings up to 100 times per second. Flying dragonflies and horseflies “sound” thanks to 100 beats per second, wasps, depending on the species, - 110-250, bumblebees - from 190 to 350. Bees work their wings even more actively - up to 450 beats per second, but when loaded with honey, they make up to 330 swings and buzzing lower. Mosquitoes are rightfully considered to be the record holders for “fast-speaking wings” - 500-600, and some - up to 1000 beats per second. At this frequency, the sound produced becomes unpleasant to our ears. Remember how the nightly itching of a flying mosquito irritates us.
But surprisingly, knowing about such a diverse repertoire, scientists for a long time could not determine how insects perceive sounds, and whether they perceive them at all. There were various assumptions, they even thought that grasshoppers, for example, hear with their whole bodies. And all this because none of the researchers could find ears on insects. But logic dictated that if there are special organs for reproducing sounds, then there must also be organs for their perception.
Some observations show that insects respond quite well to sound. An interesting incident occurred in 1956 at the dacha of an American scientist. On a pleasant warm evening, Professor K. Rehner received guests.
Everything was very nice, people were sitting on the veranda, enjoying the pleasant company, the weather and the fine wine. Night butterflies fluttered softly over the heads of those sitting. But then one of the guests accidentally ran a wet stopper across a thin crystal glass. A very high and piercing sound arose. And - lo and behold! — the flying night beauties fell together to the floor, like unconscious young ladies. The guests (and these were scientists) jumped up and began looking for the butterflies that had suddenly disappeared. And they were found lying “fainted” on the floor. Gradually, the “faint-hearted” insects came to their senses and began to crawl, and then fly, as if nothing had happened. The trick with the cork was repeated, and all the butterflies ended up on the floor again. And so on several times. Well, after that, what doubt could there be that the insects heard this sound, which literally threw them to the ground?
In 1957, the American biologist Gaskell managed to find the “ears” of grasshoppers. Who would have thought that the sound-sensitive organs of this insect are located on the legs, or rather, on the shins of the front legs and look like two narrow slits?! Butterflies have no less extravagant “ears”: in daytime butterflies they are located at the base of the fore wings, in night-time butterflies they are located between the chest and abdomen. And other insects, as it turns out, have “ears” in the most unexpected places: on the chest, on the antennae, on the tail filaments, etc. In general, who knows what! The structure of these organs also differs. One of the most common is the tympanic “ears” (tympanum translated from Greek as tambourine or drum). They consist of a cavity closed by a thin film - a sensitive membrane, from which the nerves heading to the brain extend. Another type is the “ears” located at the base of the antennae. This highly sensitive formation is called Johnston's organ. Its cells pick up the slightest vibrations in the air and transmit the received information to the brain. In principle, the sound-perceiving organs of insects, compared with those of some other types of animals, are structured very primitively. Does this mean that grasshoppers, butterflies, cicadas and other species have difficulty hearing? Not at all. Scientists have found that the sensitivity of insect hearing is simply implausible. Thus, a grasshopper basking in the rays of the sun somewhere in the Moscow region is able to perceive the noise from the aftershocks of an earthquake in Japan. Like this!
Sound, as you know, has several characteristics. Its strength is usually expressed in decibels, and its frequency (the number of sound waves, or vibrations, per unit time) - in hertz. One hertz (1 Hz) is one oscillation per second, 10 Hz is 10 oscillations, etc. The higher the frequency, the higher (thinner) the sound and vice versa. Sound with a frequency above 20,000 Hz (20 kHz) is usually called ultrasound, and below 20 Hz - infrasound. You and I are able to perceive sound in this range, from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. But for insects this is not the limit. Thus, several species of grasshoppers hear ultrasound with a frequency of 70 kHz, and moths detect vibrations of more than 200 kHz, which is 12 times greater than human hearing.
In insects, not only adults hear. Experiments by English scientists L. Koch and D. Huxley with caterpillars of bear and moth butterflies showed that they perceive sounds, and react rather strangely to some. The sounds of music, surprisingly, caused an aggressive reaction in the caterpillars. At the first beats they froze in fear, then tried to run away. If the sounds did not stop, the caterpillars assumed a threatening pose. Well, what can you do, they don’t like music!
Biologists have been racking their brains for a long time, trying to understand what these soft-bodied and non-musical creatures hear. It turned out that they perceive sounds through numerous hairs covering their body. Bear caterpillars got their name from their thick fur, but moth caterpillars have thin and transparent hairs, almost invisible to the naked eye.
But what is the significance in the life of insects of the sounds they make themselves? In grasshoppers, “singing” plays a very important role in procreation. A male, selflessly performing roulades, is heard by many females of his species. However, only the unfertilized rush to meet him. Thus, the sound makes it very easy for single ladies to search for a vacant gentleman. “Songs” have a similar meaning in the life of mosquitoes. Almost all males squeak the same way. But the females are such entertainers! Not only do they squeak completely differently from males. Fertilized females “sound” different from unfertilized females, and adult females sound different from young or very old ones. All this makes life much easier for mosquito males, who usually strive for unfertilized mosquitoes that are not too young and not too old. Mosquito gentlemen perceive the “singing” of beautiful ladies with their antennae. Moreover, the fluffier the mustache, the better the hearing. The whiskers of male mosquitoes become fluffy only at a certain age. And it’s still too early for beardless, or rather, non-feathered youths to look for partners. Female mosquitoes do not need whiskers at all, since they do not look for partners - they will fly in on their own.
Another interesting feature of the luxurious whiskers of mosquito cavaliers is that they cannot be used to perceive other sounds. Like a radio receiver, they are tuned to only one frequency - the one emitted by the wings of a female in the desired state.
It is interesting that the first to come to the conclusion that male mosquitoes search for female friends using hearing was not a biologist, but an American engineer H. Maxim, who went down in history as the inventor of the heavy machine gun. While installing a chain of electric lights, he noticed that a swarm of male pinnate mosquitoes was hovering around the transformers. Maxim tried to publish his observations, but was ridiculed...
Thus, sound helps insects find each other during the mating season, but this is not its only role. The insects use sound to warn rivals to stay away. In addition, sound can be used to signal impending danger. Remember the “fainting” butterflies at the American scientist’s dacha. The fact is that moths are able to hear bats. These dangerous hunters use ultrasound to find food. So, the butterflies, having caught it, escape as best they can: some “lose consciousness” and fall down, others abruptly change their flight path. And female bloodsucking mosquitoes need a squeak not only to attract vegetarian males - it can also serve as a warning of danger. When one of the mosquitoes flees, it makes a more shrill sound, and the others, hearing it, react accordingly.
In insects, mimicry is not uncommon - a phenomenon when completely harmless species disguise themselves as poisonous, stinging ones. In bee flies and wasp flies, this imitation goes even further: they copy not only the appearance and color, but also the sound made by bees and wasps when flying. So, a flying wasp makes 150 strokes per second, and the flies that imitate it are almost the same - 145-147. To birds and mammals these sounds seem the same, but the insects themselves clearly distinguish them. And a fly will never confuse a wasp with its relative and vice versa. This is very convenient: both people recognize them and strangers are afraid of them.
Sound is especially important for social insects, whose colonies live and function as a single harmonious organism. To maintain the normal functioning of such a complex structure, termites, bees, ants and some other species have different methods: “languages” of smells, gestures and, of course, sounds. Termites, for example, warn each other about impending danger not only with special substances - fear pheromones, but also with special sounds. Hard-working bees usually do not fight, but if it is necessary to defend a house, they make a special sound with their wings, at the same time spreading the “smell of attack” around them, and together they rush into battle. A sound for bees - and a pass into the hive. As you already know, a light bee makes about 400-450 beats per second, and a bee carrying prey into the hive makes about 330. For our ears, this difference is almost imperceptible, but for the bee guards who guard the hive, it is very noticeable. And these strict guards will never let bees into the house if they return empty. And even more so, they will not allow marauding bees to enter, who, instead of working on flowers, are just waiting for the opportunity to steal nectar from someone else’s house. Sound is no less important for the transmission of information by scout bees. During their famous dances, they tell their relatives where and in what quantity there are flowers full of the desired nectar. Zoologists have found that their story consists not only of movements and smells, but is also accompanied by a hum of a certain frequency.
Having learned about the role of sound in the life of insects, scientists began to try to use this knowledge in practice.
For example, in 1948, 70 years after H. Maxim's observations, attempts were made to repel or trap mosquitoes using sounds of a certain frequency. This turned out to be not so easy, since these insects can only hear sound at a very short distance. But scientists continue to work in this direction. The sound was able to drive away hungry locusts from the fields. Devices whose sound is designed to repel mosquitoes are now on sale. Advertising, of course, describes their effectiveness, but not all consumers agree with this. All these developments are just the first steps, and a lot of work is still ahead to find out what insects “talk” and “sing” about. Literature
Dmitriev Yu. Neighbors on the planet. Insects. - M.: Children's literature, 1977. Animal life. - M.: Education, 1984, vol. 3. Marikovsky P. To the young entomologist. - M.: Children's literature, 1978. Fabre P. Insects. - M.: Mir, 1976.
G.N. Tikhonov, association of pedagogical publications “First of September” (www.1september.ru)
Sea Elephant
These animals are considered one of the largest mammals living in the eastern Pacific Ocean. These animals use a variety of sounds to communicate, and each individual of these animals has its own rhythm by which it can be identified.
Elephant seals use their small proboscis to produce extremely loud sounds that can reach a significant range of up to 126 dB. Such sounds can be easily heard even after several kilometers.
Whale
These are the largest animals on our planet and the owners of the most powerful and loud voice. Sperm whales are considered the loudest. At the very top of the volume, the sounds they make can reach 230 dB.
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For example, blue whales are capable of producing sounds whose volume reaches 188 dB. Whales use such sounds for a kind of communication with other members of the pod or for easier navigation under water.
Elephant
These animals are considered one of the most socially developed. They use trumpeting, snorting, roaring and many other sounds to communicate.
Each sound represents a completely different information or emotion that the animal is trying to convey, such as joy, danger or anger. Sometimes the volume of such sounds can reach 117 dB.
In addition to using different types of sounds, elephants also hear very well, which is not at all surprising when you have such huge ears.
a lion
The King of the Jungle can be very loud, almost too loud. The roar, which reaches a volume of 114 dB, makes the lion the loudest of all wild cats in the world. To be precise, the roar of a lion is so powerful and loud that it can be heard quite easily even at a distance of 8 km.
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Just like cats, lions can purr, growl and even grunt. Lions roar only to show everyone else their dominance in a certain territory, as well as to frighten and warn enemies.
Curiosities of hearing
When we bite a hard cracker, we hear a deafening noise, while our neighbors eat the same crackers without noticeable noise. How do they manage to avoid this noise?
The fact is that noise and rumble exist only in our ears and little bother the ears of our neighbors. The bones of the skull, like solid, elastic bodies in general, conduct sounds very well, and sound in a dense environment is sometimes amplified to extreme proportions.
Reaching the ear through the air, the crackling of a cracker is perceived as a slight noise; but the same crackling turns into a roar if it reaches the auditory nerve through the hard bones of the skull. Here is another experiment from the same area: hold the ring of a pocket watch between your teeth and close your ears tightly with your fingers: you will hear heavy blows - this will intensify the ticking of the watch.
Beethoven, deaf, listened, they say, to playing the piano, holding one end of his cane to it, the other end of which he held to his teeth. Likewise, those deaf who have an inner ear can dance to music: the sounds reach their auditory nerves through the floor and bones.
Tiger shrimp
This is not surprising, but it is indeed a fact: the tiger shrimp is capable of producing sounds up to 200 dB deep under the water of the Pacific Ocean. Tiger shrimp are famous for their strong and powerful claws.
When prey approaches, the shrimp swings its claws at incredible speed. This creates a wave in the water that helps kill the prey. At the same time, air bubbles from the movement of the shrimp create a fairly loud noise in the range of 200 dB. These are simply incredible shrimp abilities.
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FAQ: Acoustic communication in Orthoptera
7 facts about the signals used by grasshoppers, crickets and locusts
Alice Teoh
Orthoptera are primarily grasshoppers, crickets and locusts. These also include the mole cricket and some small groups of insects, but the sounds are made mainly by grasshoppers, a fairly large part of crickets and some locusts.
Friction mechanism
Orthoptera make sounds in different ways, but the basis is the so-called “friction mechanism”. This is a mechanism that includes two movable cuticular elements (sclerites). One usually has a row of teeth, and the other is a sharp edge or vein, such as on a wing. The teeth touch this sharp edge, and thus the sound is generated. In addition, usually some element plays the role of a sound resonator. Grasshoppers and crickets produce signals through the movement of their elytra. The elytra move, and when moving or moving apart, the teeth touch the sharp edging, and thus a sound is produced. Locusts sing with their feet. In the large subfamily of locusts Gomphocerinae, the denticles are located on the inner side of the hind thigh, and with these denticles they touch the vein of the elytra.
Why do insects make sounds?
Insects make sounds primarily in order to find individuals of the opposite sex. As a rule, males make sounds. The so-called “calling signals” are emitted by single males. These sounds are made spontaneously, and females sometimes hear them from a very long distance and go to the singing males. In some Orthoptera, females can respond, as, for example, in a number of grasshoppers and many locusts. And in this case, the male and female can move towards each other, alternately talking.
The calling signal is a very important signal that helps individuals of the opposite sex get closer; without it they cannot find each other, since other types of communications are very poorly developed. They do not have developed chemical communication, like, for example, butterflies, which mainly use chemicals (pheromones) to find each other.
Courtship signals
When a male and female locust are close together, the male switches to a different type of song, called a “courtship signal.” In many species, these signals are much more complex in structure (in amplitude-temporal organization) than calling signals. The fact is that for a female it is important not only to find a representative of her species, but also to choose the best, highest quality male, and the function of such an evaluative signal is taken on by the courtship signal.
From a distance, it is difficult to assess certain individual characteristics of a singing male due to the large interference that occurs when spreading over a long distance and in the presence of other simultaneously singing species, even the same Orthoptera. And the female can evaluate the quality of the male only, for example, by volume and will prefer to go to the male who sings louder. When they are close, then, in addition to acoustics, other modalities come into play - chemical signals, vision and even tactile signals. For example, in most grasshoppers, the male stops singing when he is close to the female; he probes the female with his antennae and antennae.
