Antenna Provides Selective Hearing

a close up of a fruit fly with a pinkish color body and big red eyes sits on a leaf against a blurry background

Biological Strategy

AskNature Team

Image: Reinhold Möller / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY SA - Creative Commons Attribution + ShareAlike

Sense Sound and Other Vibrations From the Environment

For living systems, sensing sound and other vibrations is important for communicating and detecting conditions within their environment. Living systems must locate a signal’s source so that they can move toward it (such as when it is food or a potential mate) or away from it (such as when it is a predator). To prompt an appropriate response, living systems must sense these signals, recognize their amplitude or volume (which is sometimes very low), and determine their direction. Living systems must be attuned to signals relevant to them and able to distinguish these from irrelevant sounds to avoid expending unnecessary energy. For example, owls’ ears are asymmetrically placed. This enables them to detect sounds more accurately, which helps them locate small prey at night and avoid wasting energy chasing down irrelevant sounds.

Search this Function

Insects

Class Insecta (“an insect”): Flies, ants, beetles, cockroaches, fleas, dragonflies

Insects are the most abundant arthropods—they make up 90% of the animals in the phylum. They’re found everywhere on earth except the deep ocean, and scientists estimate there are millions of insects not yet described. Most live on land, but many live in freshwater or saltwater marshes for part of their life cycles. Insects have three distinct body sections: a head, which has specialized mouthparts, a thorax, which has jointed legs, and an abdomen. They have well-developed nervous and sensory systems, and are the only invertebrate that can fly, thanks to their lightweight exoskeletons and small size.

Search this Living System

The antenna of a fruit fly is used for selective hearing thanks to its multi-part, swiveling structure.

“The fly Drosophila melanogaster has very small hearing organs each of which consists of 3 antennal segments and a feather-like arista. These parts constitute together the sound receiver. When a desired sound is heard, the arista rotates one of the antennas and penetrates a hook into the second antenna (the internal one) and stretches the auditory receptors. At such conditions the auditory receptors can function and enable hearing. Otherwise the Drosophila melanogaster hearing is prevented.” (Collins 2004:170)

Last Updated August 18, 2016

References

Book

Design and Nature II: Comparing Design in Nature With Science and Engineering (Design and Nature) (Design and Nature, 6)

09/06/2004 | M. W. Collins

embedly preview

Reference

Journal article

AskNature