High-speed duetting – Latency times of the female acoustic response within the bush-cricket genera Leptophyes and Andreiniimon (Orthoptera, Phaneropteridae)

Abstract

To find a mate, male and female bush-crickets of the family Phaneropteridae typically engage in duets. The male sings and the female responds. For mutual recognition, the amplitude pattern of the male song and the species-specific timing of the female response have been shown to be very important. In the seven studied species, belonging to the genera Leptophyes and Andreiniimon, these duets are extremely fast and nearly completely in the ultrasonic range. The females produce very short sounds by fast closing movements of the tegmina. They respond with species-specific delays of 20 to 150 ms after the beginning of the male song. The different latency times are probably not important for species recognition, since in sympatric species they are quite similar.