World's Oldest Love Song? --
Fossils have given scientists a picture of what the prehistoric world looked like, but apart from the probability that the early part was noisy with volcanos and earthquakes, early sounds have not been capturable. Scientists at the University of Gottingen have finally been able to locate one living sound from 55 million years ago -- the love courting song of the chirping of crickets. Reporting in this week's Nature, they have been examining the fossilized forewings of a large 55 -million year old cricket (5-inch wingspan), and show that it had the same sound producing structures as today's crickets.
Crickets (male crickets) are insect violinists -- they bow their wings together and the chirps come from sawtooth surfaces on the left wing scratching against a raised vein on the right wing. There are also membranes on the right wing to resonate the sound. The song sung by the 55-million year old strolling player was at a frequency peak of 7,000 hertz, or cycles per second, about the same as today's crickets.
(edited from Nature, June 1999, NYT(Henry Fountain), and a call to an insect biologist).
Love's old sweet song....
yours, Peter T.