In the News: Mating call of an extinct bush-cricket rings out again after 165m years
From the Guardian: Mating call of an extinct bush-cricket rings out again after 165m yearsA love song that carried on the wind through the ancient forests of the late Jurassic has been reconstructed by scientists in Britain.
Researchers pieced together the staccato mating call of the long-gone creature, a distant relative of the modern bush-cricket, from fossilised remains unearthed in Mongolia.
The insect's body and wings were preserved in such exquisite detail that specialists in bioacoustics at Bristol University could measure the parts used to produce mating calls and recreate the sounds. The cricket, Archaboilus musicus, lived 165m years ago, when much of northwest China was a sparse forest of coniferous evergreens and giant ferns. "This is one of the oldest mating calls ever reconstructed from a fossil," lead researcher Fernando Montealegre Zapata told the Guardian.
Read More