Specific differences in sound production and pattern recognition in tettigoniids.

A brief comparative description of the stridulatory songs of nine different tettigoniid species is given to introduce a set of four parameters (phase of sound production during opening and closing movement of the wings, syllable repetition mode, syllable similarity, and impulse pattern of the syllables) to characterize the temporal pattern of tettigoniid songs. The importance of different song parameters for female phonotaxis was investigated in two tettigoniid species (Ephippiger ephippiger and Tettigonia viridissima). Two-choice experiments revealed that the impulse pattern of the closing syllable is an important parameter for the phonotactic behaviour of E. ephippiger, whereas the syllable pattern is a decisive parameter for species discrimination in T. viridissima.