February 06, 2012 Examining the insect's seven centimeter long
fossil wings under microscope, researchers were able to see how
the prehistoric male katydid employed stridulation, i.e. rubbing
body parts together, to produce a song to attract a female.
Given the insect's morphology, biomechanical experts were then
able to decipher that the insect sang at a low pitch of 6.4 kHz
with each note lasting about 16 milliseconds, producing a
single, decisive note. [to listen to sound click here] "This
discovery indicates that pure tone communication was already
exploited by animals in the middle Jurassic, some 165 million
years ago. For Archaboilus, as for living [katydid] species,
singing constitutes a key component of mate attraction,"
explains Daniel Robert, biomechanical expert at Bristol's School
of Biological Sciences, in a press release. "Singing loud and
clear advertises the presence, location and quality of the
singer, a message that females choose to respond to—or not."
This is the first insect fossil to bet