01817nas a2200265 4500008004100000022001400041245012000055210006900175260001600244300001600260490000800276520100400284653002501288653001701313653001601330653001901346653001801365100001401383700003301397700001901430700001801449700001601467700001201483856005601495 2012 eng d a0027-842400aWing stridulation in a Jurassic katydid (Insecta, Orthoptera) produced low-pitched musical calls to attract females0 aWing stridulation in a Jurassic katydid Insecta Orthoptera produ cJun-03-2012 a3868 - 38730 v1093 a
Behaviors are challenging to reconstruct for extinct species, particularly the nature and origins of acoustic communication. Here we unravel the song of Archaboilus musicus Gu, Engel and Ren sp. nov., a 165 million year old stridulating katydid. From the exceptionally preserved morphology of its stridulatory apparatus in the forewings and phylogenetic comparison with extant species, we reveal that A. musicus radiated pure-tone (musical) songs using a resonant mechanism tuned at a frequency of 6.4 kHz. Contrary to previous scenarios, musical songs were an early innovation, preceding the broad-bandwidth songs of extant katydids. Providing an accurate insight into paleoacoustic ecology, the low-frequency musical song of A. musicus was well-adapted to communication in the lightly cluttered environment of the mid-Jurassic forest produced by coniferous trees and giant ferns, suggesting that reptilian, amphibian, and mammalian insectivores could have also heard A. musicus' song.
10abiological asymmetry10abiomechanics10abushcricket10acall evolution10aTettigoniidae1 aGu, J.-J.1 aMontealegre-Zapata, Fernando1 aRobert, Daniel1 aEngel, M., S.1 aQiao, G.-X.1 aRen, D. uhttp://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1118372109