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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Bright lights at night scramble the sweet song of crickets

Exposure to stronger artificial light led to greater disruption of the insects’ night music.
Close up of on a group of crickets crawling over an egg carton

Field crickets usually synchronize their chirps, but that coordination fails if the insects are exposed to artificial light after sunset. Credit: Sutthiwat Srikhrueadam/Getty

Around the world, night is marked by the male crickets’ chirps, sounds they make by rubbing raspy modified forewings together in an effort to attract females. But artificial lights can disrupt these melodies, experiments show1.

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Nature 597, 596 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02560-0

References

  1. Levy, K. et al. Proc. R. Soc. B. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.1626 (2021).

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