Wood cricket megaphone | Montana Public Radio

In nature, insects come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Even within the same species, body size and other characteristics can vary considerably from individual to individual.

For male insects, when it comes to passing on genes to the next generation, larger, stronger males are usually the best at attracting females. But for those with flaws, you can often fix it in surprising ways.

Take the woodpecker. Known for their rather loud mating calls, the smaller (and therefore quieter) wood crickets are at a disadvantage when it comes to sending their love songs. But what these smaller crickets lack in size, they more than make up for in their ingenuity. Something that proved confusing for scientists literally.

Not confusingly confusing. We talked about sound reinforcement.

Although the confusion of tree crickets was first described in the 1970s, it was only more recent research that explained the details behind the mystery of the event.

Lacking the ability to vocalize their desire to mate as their larger counterparts, small tree crickets were observed chewing holes in the center of a leaf and sticking their heads and front legs through the opening.

With noisy wings now in the center of this DIY megaphone, the little crickets could double or triple the volume of calls. The larger the magazine used, the louder the results, and the more attractive their invitations were to women.

So while conventional wisdom has always told us that in the wild it’s the biggest and strongest that deserves the right to mate, we now understand that it’s really the biggest, strongest or most resourceful.