Substrate-transmitted acoustic signals of the primitive cicada, Tettigarcta crinita Distant (Hemiptera Cicadoidea, Tettigarctidae)

Abstract

Male cicadas are familiar for their unique loud airborne calls used in courtship and mate recognition. Extant Tettigarcta species in Australia are little-known relict survivors of a primitive Mesozoic cicada radiation which do not make loud calls and lack either the apparatus to produce them or the auditory organs to detect them. Field studies on live insects in New South Wales for the first time show that Tettigarcta produce low-intensity, substrate-transmitted acoustic signals in courtship. This habit seems to be a primitive (plesiomorphic) feature.