- Research on Jurassic-era fossil katydids from Ningcheng County, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, has provided the first evidence that insects capable of ultrasonic communication existed 165 million years ago, during the Middle Jurassic, a researcher at the Capital Normal University (CNU) told the Global Times.
- The study provides the first clear evidence that the evolutionary origins of ultrasonic communication in insects predated the emergence of bats, placing them more than 100 million years earlier than the bats of the Eocene epoch.
- The findings were published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the US on Wednesday, and the research was conducted by the CNU in collaboration with multiple research teams in China and abroad.
- Researchers selected 20 forewing specimens from nine species of male katydids in the Yanliao Biota of the Daohugou area in Ningcheng County and compared them with a relict katydid group now found only in Southwest China's Sichuan Province.
- They developed a paleoauditory reconstruction process involving fossil wing morphology, wing resonance simulation, syllable reconstruction and calling-song temporal prediction to reconstruct the full acoustic characteristics of the calls produced by these ancient insects.
- The calling frequencies of the nine fossil katydid species ranged from 5 to 20.5 kilohertz (kHz), with five species producing low-frequency pure tones in the 5-7 kHz range and the remaining four occupying the medium- to high-frequency range of 8-20.5 kHz.
- The carrier frequency of one fossil species reached as high as 20.5 kHz, confirming that insects capable of true ultrasonic communication already existed during the Middle Jurassic.
Research on Jurassic-era fossil katydids from Ningcheng County, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, has revealed that insects capable of ultrasonic communication existed 165 million years ago, during the Middle Jurassic. This groundbreaking study, conducted by the Capital Normal University (CNU) in collaboration with various research teams, provides the first clear evidence that the evolutionary origins of ultrasonic communication in insects predated the emergence of bats by over 100 million years.12
The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and highlight a new theory of two-way acoustic selection between insects and mammals during the Mesozoic Era. According to Ren Dong, co-author of the paper and professor at CNU, the study allows us to hear insect calls from the Jurassic period across 165 million years and offers a more complete picture of the co-evolution of hearing and sound production in terrestrial animals.
Researchers analyzed 20 forewing specimens from nine species of male katydids in the Yanliao Biota of the Daohugou area. They developed a paleoauditory reconstruction process that involved fossil wing morphology, wing resonance simulation, syllable reconstruction, and calling-song temporal prediction to reconstruct the full acoustic characteristics of the calls produced by these ancient insects. The calling frequencies of the nine fossil katydid species ranged from 5 to 20.5 kilohertz (kHz), with one species reaching as high as 20.5 kHz, confirming the existence of true ultrasonic communication during the Middle Jurassic.56789
“The study, published in PNAS, used 20 forewing specimens from nine species, with frequencies up to 20.5 kHz. Co-author Ren Dong says it allows hearing Jurassic insect calls across 165 million years, proposing a new theory of two-way acoustic selection between insects and mammals.”
