Do Crickets Use Vibrations to Detect Potential Predators? ABSTRACT Predator detection in any environment is necessary for survival. The aim of the paper is to find out whether crickets use vibrations to detect potential predators. The experimental design involved 10 males and 5 females. Music was used as the source of predation at varying music volumes. In the control experiment, the crickets were not exposed to any music, but in two successive tests, the crickets were exposed to slow and high music. The number of chirping per test was recorded and the numbers of chirps were counted for each test. The experiment was repeated three times. The results showed that the number of chirps decreased as the music volume increased. But the decrease was tremendous when the crickets were exposed to high volume music. Chirping in crickets is used to communicate but when they sense that predators are eavesdropping, they immediately stop chirping or reduce the number of chirps. The study showed that crickets definitely use vibration to sense the presence of predators. When the music volume increased, the numbers of chirps reduce completely. INTRODUCTION Predator detection is an important aspect of survival in any given environment. Crickets are defenseless insects compared to other animals that can rapidly fly or use venomous stingers (Yager, 2012). Therefore it is appropriate for them to detect predators as early as possible to be able to hide or fly away. Without predator detection techniques, then predators can easily locate them given their courtship communication by chirping at night. Communication through vibration detection is not uncommon in crickets. It is essential that crickets communicate and locate potential mates to sustain their population but also evade predators at the same time. A study done by researchers at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Hyderabad Central University, found out that a particular species of bushcricket use disguised vibrations to seek the male (Vaidya, 2015). In usual circumstances, the female would come looking for the calling male to mate. But the bushcricket females camouflage themselves by hiding under jackfruit leaves and silent. The female send the vibration through the tree to guide the male where she is. The researchers found out that the bushcricket has evolved some unusual low frequency call that cannot be detected by predators. Crickets commonly use acoustical communication to relay messages to one another especially during courtship (Yager, 2012) Crickets produce air-borne sounds which can be heard by humans. Therefore, this kind of communication has been extensively studied for a long time meaning that there is possibility of communication through vibrations. However, vibrational communication has been known to exist for many years but it was thought to be of less importance. In the recent years substrate-borne vibrations have become clear that it is important and widespread. Therefore the p.

1. Do Crickets Use Vibrations to Detect Potential Predators?
ABSTRACT
Predator detection in any environment is necessary for survival.
The aim of the paper is to find out whether crickets use
vibrations to detect potential predators. The experimental
design involved 10 males and 5 females. Music was used as the
source of predation at varying music volumes. In the control
experiment, the crickets were not exposed to any music, but in
two successive tests, the crickets were exposed to slow and high
music. The number of chirping per test was recorded and the
numbers of chirps were counted for each test. The experiment
was repeated three times. The results showed that the number of
chirps decreased as the music volume increased. But the
decrease was tremendous when the crickets were exposed to
high volume music. Chirping in crickets is used to communicate
but when they sense that predators are eavesdropping, they
immediately stop chirping or reduce the number of chirps. The
study showed that crickets definitely use vibration to sense the
presence of predators. When the music volume increased, the
numbers of chirps reduce completely.
INTRODUCTION
Predator detection is an important aspect of survival in any

2. given environment. Crickets are defenseless insects compared to
other animals that can rapidly fly or use venomous stingers
(Yager, 2012). Therefore it is appropriate for them to detect
predators as early as possible to be able to hide or fly away.
Without predator detection techniques, then predators can easily
locate them given their courtship communication by chirping at
night. Communication through vibration detection is not
uncommon in crickets. It is essential that crickets communicate
and locate potential mates to sustain their population but also
evade predators at the same time. A study done by researchers
at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Hyderabad Central
University, found out that a particular species of bushcricket
use disguised vibrations to seek the male (Vaidya, 2015). In
usual circumstances, the female would come looking for the
calling male to mate. But the bushcricket females camouflage
themselves by hiding under jackfruit leaves and silent. The
female send the vibration through the tree to guide the male
where she is. The researchers found out that the bushcricket has
evolved some unusual low frequency call that cannot be
detected by predators.
Crickets commonly use acoustical communication to relay
messages to one another especially during courtship (Yager,
2012) Crickets produce air-borne sounds which can be heard by
humans. Therefore, this kind of communication has been
extensively studied for a long time meaning that there is
possibility of communication through vibrations. However,
vibrational communication has been known to exist for many
years but it was thought to be of less importance. In the recent
years substrate-borne vibrations have become clear that it is
important and widespread. Therefore the purpose of the study is
to find out whether crickets use vibrations to detect potential
predators. The hypotheses of the study are: 1) there will be
cricket chirping when there is no music, 2) there will be low or
no cricket chirping with soft music and 3) there will be no
cricket chirping with high music.
MATERIALS & METHODS

3. The crickets were collected at night using an insect trap. From
the sample, 10 males and 5 females were taken randomly. The
crickets were placed in the same room. Music from a phone was
used as the source of predator. High and soft music NOTE: How
do you define high and soft music?? represented the predator
presence and no music represented absence of predator and
acted as the control experiment. The number of cricket chirping
was recorded How was this recorded? By using Click Counter
application on the iPhone then later counted with no music, with
soft music and finally with loud music. The experiment was
repeated three times for accuracy purposes. When was it
repeated? We repeated it immediately at the same time.
RESULTS
The outcome of the experiment showed that the number of
cricket chirping decreased as the volume of music increased
Volume or type of music? This is under tone. The number of
chirping is shown in the table below.
Table 1: Showing number of cricket chirping in the absence and
presence of music
Number of Chirping
No of Experiment
No Music
Soft Music
High Music
1
480
440
34
2
483
423
36

4. 3
422
406
17
Figure 1.
Figure 1 showing that the number of cricket chirping decreased
as the volume of music increased.
Table 2: Calculations for the chi square test of independence
No of
Chirping
No of Experiments
No Music
Slow Music
High Music
Total
1
480
440
34
954
2
483
423
36
942

5. 3
422
406
17
845
Total
1385
1269
87
2741
Chi Square (X2) = the sum of all the (fo- fe)2/fe
Where by fo is the frequency of the observed (O) data while fe
is the frequency of the expected (E)data.
Observed (O)
Expected (E)
(O-E)2
(O-E)2/E
480
477.50
6.15
0.0129
440
441.67
2.79
0.0063
34
30.28
13.84

6. 0.4570
483
475.98
49.28
0.1035
423
436.12
172.13
0.3947
36
29.90
37.21
1.2445
422
426.97
24.70
0.0579
406
391.21
218.74
0.5591
17
26.82
96.43
3.5955
Therefore Chi Square Total is 6.4314 and the Degree of
Freedom (df) is number of columns (c)minus one, multiply by
number of rows (r) minus one: (c-1)(r-1)= 4
Predetermined alpha level of significance is: 0.05. From the Chi
Square Distribution table, the p-value is 9.488. Thus, the Ho
(null hypothesis) will not be rejected because the p-value
(6.4314) is greater than the significance level (0.05), p>0.05.
Figure 2.
figure 2 shows plots of chi square values at various degrees of

7. freedom.
DISCUSSION
Crickets can detect vibrations produced by sounds within their
environments. Crickets can easily detect vibrations produced by
their predator. The music in the experiment represented sound
produced by a predator Who do you know this?. The results
showed that as the volume of music increased, the number of
chirping decreased. This means when crickets detect danger,
they decrease the rate of chirping or stop completely to prevent
predators from locating them. The control experiment was done
with no music and the number of chirping was the highest. But
the number of chirping decreased as the experiment was
repeated. When the music volume was slow, the number of
chirping decreased but within the range of four hundred and
above chirps. However, when the volume was changed to high,
the number of chirping decreased tremendously.
Need to fix this section
The experiment supported our hypotheses formulated were
right. The first hypothesis predicted that there will be cricket
chirping with no music. According to the results in table 1, the
number of chirping was recorded the highest for all the three
experiments. But the second hypothesis predicted that there will
be low or no chirping with slow music. The results however
showed that there were chirping but not as many as when there
is no music. For the third hypothesis, it predicted that there will
be no chirping, which is not true because there was chirping but
very minimal. Therefore, this study has shown that crickets use
vibrations to detect potential predators (Kortet, & Hedrick,
2004). According to a study done by Benz, et al. (2014) crickets
distinguish the cues for different predators which include
vibrations What types do vibrations?. The vibrations that are
released by approaching predators are unique and crickets can
easily identify and respond accordingly (Bucher et al, 2014).
This adds to the little existing knowledge about crickets’ use of
vibration to detect predators. Research has shown that crickets

8. use filiform hairs found on their cerci to sense the faintest air
movements produced by approaching predators (Magal et al,
2006).But further studies need to be done to determine how they
detect the vibration from predators.
Work Cited
Binz, H., Bucher, R., Entling, M. H., &Menzel, F.
(2014).Knowing the risk: crickets distinguish between spider
predators of different size and commonness.Ethology, 120(1),
99-110.
Bucher, R., Binz, H., Menzel, F., &Entling, M. H. (2014).
Spider cues stimulate feeding, weight gain and survival of
crickets. Ecological Entomology, 39(6), 667-673.
Magal, C., Dangles, O., Caparroy, P., & Casas, J. (2006). Hair
canopy of cricket sensory system tuned to predator signals.
Journal of theoretical biology, 241(3), 459-466.
Kortet, R., & Hedrick, A. (2004). Detection of the spider
predator, Hololenanedra by naive juvenile field crickets
(Gryllus integer) using indirect cues. Behaviour, 141(9), 1189-
1196.
Vaidya, A. (2015). Bushcricket duets combine discreet
vibrations with sound to elude predators. IndiaBioscience.
Retrieved 22 February 2016, from
https://indiabioscience.org/news/2015/bushcricket-duets-
combine-discreet-vibrations-with-sound-to-elude-predators
Yager, D. D. (2012).Predator detection and evasion by flying
insects.Current opinion in neurobiology, 22(2), 201-207.
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9. N Mean Std Dev S.E.
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
No Music
Soft Music
Hard Music