Scientists Replicate Prehistoric Cricket Sound

Could be the world's oldest known song: researchers
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 7, 2012 4:12 PM CST
Scientists Replicate Prehistoric Cricket Sound
A modern bush cricket.   (Shutterstock)

Scientists have brought back a sound that hasn't been heard in 165 million years: the song of a prehistoric cricket. Using a remarkably intact fossil of a katydid—also known as a bush cricket—researchers were able to create soundalike replicas based on the creature's wings, AFP reports. Now we can once again hear "possibly the most ancient known musical song documented to date," the study notes.

"This Jurassic bush cricket... helps us learn a little more about the ambiance of a world long gone," says one of the study's authors. To better understand what it sounded like, it's important to imagine wind, running water, and other animal noises playing in the background, the study points out. It would have been used to attract mates: "Singing loud and clear advertises the presence, location and quality of the singer, a message that females choose to respond to—or not," another researcher says. Click here to get to a recording of the recreated cricket call. (More cricket stories.)

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