PMID: 9450979Feb 6, 1998Paper

Sound radiation by the bladder cicada cystosoma saundersii

The Journal of Experimental Biology
H C Bennet-Clark, d

Abstract

Male Cystosoma saundersii have a distended thin-walled abdomen which is driven by the paired tymbals during sound production. The insect extends the abdomen from a rest length of 32-34 mm to a length of 39-42 mm while singing. This is accomplished through specialised apodemes at the anterior ends of abdominal segments 4-7, which cause each of these intersegmental membranes to unfold by approximately 2 mm. <P> The calling song frequency is approximately 850 Hz. The song pulses have a bimodal envelope and a duration of approximately 25 ms; they are produced by the asynchronous but overlapping action of the paired tymbals. The quality factor Q of the decay of the song pulses is approximately 17. <P> The abdomen was driven experimentally by an internal sound source attached to a hole in the front of the abdomen. This allowed the sound-radiating regions to be mapped. The loudest sound-radiating areas are on both sides of tergites 3-5, approximately 10 mm from the ventral surface. A subsidiary sound-radiating region is found mid-ventrally on sternites 4-6. Sound is radiated in the same phase from all these regions. As the abdomen was extended experimentally from its resting length to its maximum length, the amplitude of the radiated ...Continue Reading

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