A New Field of Wing Campaniform Sensilla Essential for the Production of the Attractive Calling Song in Crickets

A field of 10–15 campaniform sensilla located ventrally on the cubital vein of the cricket's wing is described for the first time. This field of cubital campaniform sensilla (CCS) is only found in male crickets. When the afference from the CCS was removed by lesions of the cubital nerve, the syllable pattern was disturbed: syllables were shortened, shifted or omitted, resulting in severe irregularities of the song time pattern. The songs of crickets with lesions of the CCS are shown to be significantly less attractive to the female in quantitative phonotaxis experiments. In choice tests, the song of a lesioned male must be 20 dB louder to be as attractive as an intact song.