Stridulation

Stridulation is sound production by rubbing specialized body structures together. It occurs in many insects and other animals, often for communication or defense.

File-and-scraper mechanism: A sound-producing arrangement in which a toothed structure is rubbed against a hard edge or scraper. This is the characteristic mechanism behind many insect stridulatory sounds.
Cricket song: A patterned acoustic signal produced by male crickets, usually by rubbing their forewings together. Cricket song is a familiar mating signal generated through stridulation.
Sound: A mechanical disturbance that propagates through a material medium as pressure or particle motion. Stridulation generates sound by setting surrounding air or other materials into vibration.
Tymbal sound production: Sound generation by rapid buckling of a specialized membrane, as in cicadas. Tymbal sound lacks the rubbing action that defines stridulation.
Tegmen: A leathery forewing found in insects such as crickets and grasshoppers. In crickets, a tegmen often bears the file or scraper used to generate sound.
Grasshopper communication: The use of sound and other signals by grasshoppers to communicate with conspecifics. Several grasshoppers stridulate during courtship or social interactions.
Insect cuticle: The external structural covering of insects, formed largely from chitin and associated proteins. Stridulatory files and scrapers are structures of the insect cuticle.
Tympanal organ: A thin auditory membrane and associated structures that detect sound vibrations in many insects. It receives sound rather than producing sound through friction.
Tymbal: A ribbed membrane that produces sound when rapidly buckled by a muscle. Cicadas use tymbals rather than rubbing structures together to make their calls.
Ant stridulation: Sound production in ants by rubbing a file-like structure against a scraper on the abdomen. Some ants use stridulation to signal within nests and attract assistance.

Linked from 13 pages