ACTIVITY 18

Cricket Communication*

Teaching Objectives:

1. Students will observe and describe several cricket behaviors.
2. Students will draw male and female cricket wings and label them correctly.
3. Students will identify gender differences between male and female cricket wings.
4. Students will engage in a role-playing exercise.
5. Students will demonstrate the chirping action of a cricket's wing using a percussion instrument.
6. Students will practice selective listening.
7. Students will investigate the production of rhythmic sounds.

Materials Needed:

• House crickets purchased at a bait shop or ordered from Biological Supply Houses
• Guiros (serrated gourds played by rubbing a stick across the surface), a washboard, or some object similarly constructed
• Rhythm sticks and other noise makers
• Sandpaper blocks
• Magnifying lenses
• Cricket specimens
• White paper
• Blindfolds
• Scalpel or exacto knife

Procedure:

Before beginning this part of the exercise, freeze some male and female crickets. Detach the forewings.

Examine the cricket forewings by placing them on the white paper and looking at them with a magnifying lens. Identify which is male and which is female. (Refer to Figure 1 below.) Notice the different pattern of veins between male and female wings. The males rub their wings together running the scraper over the file, producing the sound with which we are familiar. Observe that the male's wing is much sturdier than the female's.

Have the students make drawings of both the male and female wings and label them correctly.

Use the guiro and stick to act as the scraper in the male cricket wing. Run the stick over the carved ridges on the hollow gourd, acting as the file in the male cricket wing to produce a sound. The guiro, a Caribbean instrument, is used in the percussion sections of bands and orchestras. With two different-sized guiros you get two different pitches and tonal qualities. Ask the students if a cricket would get the same difference in tones from wings that are significantly different in size and shape?

At this time, group students into pairs. Give each pair of students a noisemaker (guiro, rhythm sticks, sand blocks). Give the students a few minutes to create a unique rhythmic call using their device. Each member of the pair must learn the rhythm and be able to recognize it. When each pair feels it has created something unique, have each pair produce the sound, making sure each pair's sound is unique. If any are the same or very close, make modifications.

Separate the pairs, having one member of the pair keep the noise-making device. The other member of the pair is given a blindfold. All those with blindfolds gather together and put on their blindfolds. Position the noisemakers around the blindfolded group and have them start producing their unique rhythmic sound. Rhythm is important in nature as well as music. Their blindfolded partners must find each other without peeking. Once the partners are paired, reverse roles and repeat the exercise.

Ask the following questions:

1. How difficult was it to find your partner?
2. Which of your senses did you have to use more than you usually do?
3. Which sense do you think crickets use to find their mates?
4. What would happen if different cricket species did not know their own calls well?

*Created by the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History

Cricket Sounds

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