Nisar Ahmad

3. COMMUNICATION AMONG INSECTS
What is Communication?
It is the exchange of information between
individuals.
Most insect language is innate. And most of
their language is inherited, so each individual
born with a distinctive vocabulary that shared
only with other members of its own species.

4. Why do insects communicate?
1- Recognition of kin or nest mates.
2- Locating or identifying a member of the opposite sex.
3- Facilitation of courtship and mating.
4- Giving directions for location of food.
5- Regulating spatial distribution of individuals,
aggregation or dispersal; establishing and maintaining a
territory.
6- Warning of danger; setting off an alarm.
7- Expressing threat or submission.
8- mimicry.

5. Insects may send a communication
signals by:
1- Doing something (e.g. make a noise, release a
chemical or flash a light).
2- By physical makeup (e.g. wing pattern, body
colour)
Like other animals, insects use their five senses
to acquire information about their environment
(taste, touch, vision, hearing, olfaction (smell)).

6. TYPES OF INSECT
COMMUNICATION
Visual
communication
Chemical
communication
Tactile
communication
Acoustic
Communication

7. Visual communication
The color patterns and other markings of the
wings (butterflies and moths) facilitate species
recognition (like football players).

8. Fire flies pulses of light are used in courtship
dialogue between a male (usually flying) and a
female (usually perched in the vegetation).

9. Photinus pyralis
Males of Photinus pyralis
emit a signal J shape flash
during a rising flight
movement and the
female responds with a
single flash after a two
second intervals.

10. Photinus comsumilis
However The male Photinus comsumilis during a
rising flight movement emit a series of 3.5 short
flashes and a female respond after a double
flash.

11. Alfalfa butterflies
In alfalfa butterflies, males have U.V. reflective
scales and missing scales is a sign for male
ageing.

12. Chemical communication:
• It is the most common way of insect
communication.
• These chemicals are divided into 2 groups.
1. Pheromones.
2. Allelo-chemicals.

13. Pheromones
Chemical signals that carry information from
one individual to another member of the same
species.
Alarm pheromones are signals that are put out
by insects if they are disturbed or threatened.
Trail pheromones are used by ants, caterpillars
and other insects. These signals are like maps
that help insects to find food.

14. Allelochemicals
• Chemical signals that travel between
individual of different species.

15. Functions of Pheromones
1- Queen bee emit pheromones that affects the
development of workers bee.
2- Ant use pheromones to recruit nest mates to
a food source.

16. • 3- When laying their eggs, some flies moths
and beetles use certain pheromones to repel
insects of the same and competing species,
thereby protecting their progeny.

17. 4- Aphids give alarm pheromones that urge
neighbouring aphids to flee from nearby
predators.

18. Tactile communication
• Insects communicate through touch with their
antennae and their mouths.
• Touch communication via antenna is common to
both bees and ants.
• There is almost no light in the bee hive, so bees often
rely on touch communication.

19. Bees dance
• Bees communicate by dance language. Bees
use dance as a form of communication for
distance and direction of food sources or nest
sites.

20. Types of dances
• 1- Round dance (running in a circle, is
performed for close sites).

21. • Transitional (or sickle) dance:
• For sites at an intermediate distance from the
hive. This dance involves running in a
semicircular (or moon) shape.

22. Waggle dance:
• The waggle dance is a language used by honey
bee Apis mellifera. Which give the bees the
ability to communicate the food sources
locations.

23. Acoustic communication:
• Sounds are caused by vibrations that can pass
through air, water, and solid structures.
• Because sound waves move rapidly through
air, acoustic signals can be quickly started,
stopped, or modified to send a time sensitive
message.

24. When insects produce sound by rubbing parts
of their body together it is called stridulation.
Grasshoppers create sounds via stridulation to
communicate with each other.

25. Vibrational communication:
Is widespread in insect social and ecological
interactions. Insects used water surface or plant
surface to produce vibrational sounds.

26. References :-
1-The principles of Insect Physiology.
2-The insects structure and function.
3-Insectos: la mejor guía de bichos. Parragon Books Ltd.
4- Hometrainingtools.com: insect communications
5-www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/ent425/tutorial/Communication/
6- Firefly.org