Cricket Radio: Tuning in the Night-Singing Insects

ISBN-13: 9780674046900 / Angielski / Twarda / 2011 / 272 str.

John Himmelman

Opis

At a time when night-singing insects have slipped beyond our notice--indeed, are more likely to be heard as NatureSounds than in a backyard--John Himmelman seeks to reconnect us to creatures whose songs form a part of our own natural history. On warm summer evenings, night-singing insects produce a whirring, chirping soundscape--a calming aural tapestry celebrated by poets and naturalists for millennia. But cricket radio is not broadcast for the easy-listening pleasure of humans. The nocturnal songs of insects are lures and warnings, full of risks and rewards for these tiny competitive performers. What moves crickets and katydids to sing, how they produce their distinctive sounds, how they hear the songs of others, and how they vary cadence, volume, and pitch to attract potential mates, warn off competitors, and evade predators is part of the engaging story Cricket Radio tells. Himmelman's narrative weaves together his personal experiences as an amateur naturalist in search of crickets and katydids with the stories of scientists who study these insects professionally.