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Good Vibrations—Key to Insect Communication
（Soundbite of 1）Treehoppers Chirping）
David Greene （Host）： What you’re hearing are treehoppers. These are insects that communicate with each other by making leaf stems vibrate.
（Soundbite of Crickets Chirping）
Greene： And what you’re hearing now are crickets， whose chirps contain encoded messages that convey life or death information. Scientists discovered this vibrational world of insects through close listening. That’s what we’re calling our project on decoding nature through sound. Today， NPR’s Christopher Joyce and audio producer Bill McQuay of the Cornell Lab of 2）Ornithology profile two scientists who reveal how these insects manage their complex social lives with sound.
Christopher Joyce （Byline）： Lots of animals， including ourselves， can feel sound as well as hear it. Elephants， for example， can communicate by 3）rumbling at low frequencies we can’t hear—whales too.
Bill McQuay （Byline）： But you don’t have to weigh a ton to rumble.
Joyce： No， in fact， you
don’t have to be bigger
than a pea， like a
treehopper， a curious
little sap-sucking insect
that lives on the stems
of leaves. Biologist Rex
Cocroft is a researcher at
the University of Missouri
who studies treehoppers.
In 1999， a team from
NPR’s Radio Expeditions
program 4）rendezvoused
with him at a 5）locust tree in a backyard in Virginia.
McQuay： He was pressing a phonograph needle up against the stem of a leaf.
Rex Cocroft： I’m just trying to get a good contact here between the 6）stylus on the phono 7）cartridge and part of the plant. Mind you， this is not in the manufacturer’s instructions for these phono cartridges.
McQuay： There’s no guidebook for listening to treehoppers. Cocroft created his own. He knew that needles in those cartridges are exquisitely sensitive to vibration. So he connected a wire from the cartridge through an amplifier and to his headphone.
Joyce： And this is what he heard.
（Soundbite of Treehoppers Chirping）
Cocroft： All the signals we’re hearing are signals produced by males.
Joyce： They’re vibrating their 8）abdomens at incredibly highspeed to make an assortment of bizarre sounds. Some are for attracting females. And some are aimed at other males.
（Soundbite of Treehoppers Chirping）
Cocroft： We’re hearing that the kind of purring （imitating treehopper sounds） sound—are sounds that males give either when two males meet each other or when they’re mate-searching on a branch.
McQuay： Normally， we can’t hear any of this. The sound travels inside the stem.
Joyce： So how did such a weird insect telegraph evolve？ Well， Rex says treehoppers， like many insects， have very sensitive legs. And they stand around on stems， which are good at transmitting vibrations. So they used what nature gave them. It gave them a way to communicate. And as social animals， that’s what they need to thrive.
Cocroft： They have so many different forms of social behavior and grouping. And once you have animals living in groups， then you have all sorts of interesting possibilities for communication.
（Soundbite of Treehoppers Chirping）
Joyce： Such as scouts tapping out a signal to others that there’s a predator nearby.
McQuay： Technology revealed this hidden vibrational world， things like phonograph needles and devices called accelerometers that measure vibration. And that ushered in a new generation of insect 9）eavesdroppers.
Laurel Symes： So I’m here tonight in Fort Worth， Texas.
Joyce： Like Laurel Symes， a biologist at Dartmouth College. Symes tunes into vibrations we can hear made by crickets.
Symes： So now we’re looking at a male tree cricket. So the way that the cricket makes sound is to use its wings. And if you look closely at one of the wings， it has a whole bunch of little tiny teeth on it. And that rubs against a vein on the other wing and it causes the whole wing to vibrate sort of like a drum head would.
Joyce： Crickets don’t have a big vocabulary like treehoppers. What they do have is a remarkable ability to discriminate tiny differences in sound frequency， a skill worthy of a concert violinist. It’s the females that can do this. And the reason—Bill， you want to explain that？
McQuay： So you go out in the woods and you hear crickets chirping. They’re males of several species all saying come and get me. To us， they sound pretty much the same， but they aren’t. The speed at which they rub their wings together， the pulse rate， varies from species to species. And Laurel discovered that females know that. Symes： And they’ve evolved to be very， very good at recognizing the exact thing that they’re looking for.
Joyce： Which is the pulse rate of a potential mate from their own species？ And there’s a good reason to be very picky.
Symes： If you don’t get it right， you lose. Joyce： You lose if you pick the wrong species of male to mate with. You won’t make little crickets.
McQuay： Laurel actually rigged up a clever experiment to test how good the females were. She 10）synthesized the chirps of various male crickets on a computer. They were identical to the real sound and she played them for two species of females through a speaker. Here’s one chirp， a male at 43 pulses per second.
（Soundbite of Crickets Chirping）
McQuay： The females of one species immediately hustled over to the loudspeaker. The other females—not interested. Then Laurel used this chirp at 51 pulses per second.
Joyce： Just eight pulses a second faster than the first one.
（Soundbite of Crickets Chirping）
Joyce： And the females of the other species， the one that ignored the first sound， they got all romantic with the speaker. So what’s happening is that each species of cricket， there are about a hundred and forty in North America， has divided up the sound 11）spectrum into sonic niches. Each species identifies with its own frequency like a radio station. And they do it with a brain the size of a pin head.
Symes： And that’s one of the things that makes them cool is they have really simple sensory systems and still they 12）parse this really complex world.
Joyce： Symes spent years recording crickets to figure all this out. She goes wherever they are like up a tree on the Mexican border where border patrol agents wondered just what the heck she was doing.
Symes： You’re part way up a tree and， you know， the vehicle pulls up and stops and they flip on their light， you know—what you doing out here tonight， ma’am？ Oh， I’m just collecting crickets. They believed me； that’s what amazed me.
Joyce： Now she’s so tuned into the cricket world she thinks and sounds like them.
Symes： （Imitating cricket） That’s about 60.
McQuay： Yes， Laurel can do 60 pulses a second herself. She says it’s a lot like a humming refrigerator. Joyce： In fact， she’s always listening to vibrations； crickets， fans， air-conditioners.
Symes： We think that we really know what’s going on out there and we’re getting this tiny slice of all of the sound in the world.
Joyce： As for Rex Cocroft， he says most of this sonic world still remains to be discovered.
Cocroft： It’s a very intense world and so little of it really still has ever been listened to that it is very possible for anyone to go out into a weedy field or roadside and tap into those plants and hear very interesting sounds that no one has ever heard before.
Joyce： Sounds shaped by millions of years of evolution and the struggle to survive.
（角蝉鸣叫的片段）
戴维·格林尼（主持人）：你们听到的是角蝉的叫声。这些昆虫是通过使叶茎振动来相互交流的。
（蟋蟀鸣叫的片段）
格林尼：你们现在听到的是蟋蟀声，它的叫声包含着传递生与死讯息的编码信息。科学家通过近距离的探听发现了昆虫的振动世界。我们把这个项目称为通过声音解码自然。今天，国家公共电台的克里斯托弗·乔伊斯和科内尔鸟类实验室音频制作人比尔·麦奎伊将讲述两位科学家揭秘这些昆虫是如何通过声音来应付他们复杂的社交生活的故事。
克里斯托弗·乔伊斯（撰稿人）：很多动物，包括我们自己，都可以在听到声音的同时感受到声音。比如，大象可以通过发出我们听不到的低频率的低沉声音进行交流，鲸鱼也是如此。
比尔·麦奎伊（撰稿人）：但是你的重量不需要达到一吨才能发出低沉的声音。
乔伊斯：不必，实际上，你只要和豌豆一般大小就可以了，比如角蝉——一种奇异的以叶茎为食的吸汁小昆虫。生物学家雷克斯·寇克劳福特是密苏里大学的研究员，角蝉是他的研究对象。1999年，国家公共电台的《电台探索》节目的一组工作人员与他在弗吉尼亚州一个后院的槐树下会面。
麦奎伊：他将一根唱针压在一片叶子的茎上。
雷克斯·寇克劳福特：我只是想尽量让留声机拾音器的唱针和这株植物的一部分有较好的接触。注意，这并不在这些留声机拾音器制造商的操作指南之列。
麦奎伊：没有任何听取角蝉叫声的指南手册。寇克劳福特创造了自己的方式。他知道留声机拾音器上的唱针对振动异常的敏感。所以，他将拾音器的扩音器与耳机用电线相连。
乔伊斯：这就是他听到的声音。
（角蝉鸣叫的片段）
寇克劳福特：我们所听到的所有信号都是雄性角蝉发出的。
乔伊斯：他们以难以置信的高速度振动他们的腹腔，发出各种奇特的声音。一些声音是为了吸引异性，而另一些则针对其他同性。
（角蝉鸣叫的片段）
寇克劳福特：我们听到那种低沉的声音（模仿角蝉的叫声），是两只雄性角蝉见面时或者他们在树枝上寻找配偶时传递出来的。
麦奎伊：通常我们听不到这些声音。这些声音在叶茎里传播。
乔伊斯：那么，这些奇异的昆虫是怎样发出讯息的呢？呃，雷克斯说，和很多昆虫一样，角蝉有非常灵敏的腿。它们站在叶茎的周围，茎是传播振动声音的优质媒介。所以，它们使用的是大自然的馈赠。自然给予了它们一种交流的方式。作为一种社交型的动物，这是它们繁荣昌盛所必需的条件。
寇克劳福特：它们有很多不同形式的社交行为和种群。一旦你发现群居生活的动物，你就会发现各种各样有趣的交流方式的可能性。
（角蝉鸣叫的片段）
乔伊斯：像这样侦查时敲击出传递给其他人的信号表示附近有捕食者。
麦奎伊：科技展示了这个隐秘的振动世界，像留声机唱针以及叫加速计的这类仪器可以测量振动。这令昆虫探听迈入了一个新的时代。
劳雷尔·赛姆斯：所以，我今晚待在德克萨斯州的沃思堡。
乔伊斯：劳雷尔·赛姆斯是达特茅斯学院的一名生物学家。赛姆斯将蟋蟀发出的振动频率调整为我们能听到的频率。
赛姆斯：所以，现在我们看到的是一只雄性树蟋。这只蟋蟀是通过它的翅膀发出声音的。假如你靠近观察这些翅膀的其中一只，你就会看到它的翅膀上有一整组极小的齿状物。摩擦另一只翅膀上的翅脉，可以使整只翅膀像鼓面一样地振动。
乔伊斯：蟋蟀不像角蝉那样有那么大的词汇量。它们拥有一种卓越的能力，那就是可以分辨声频中细微的差别，这种能力是音乐会的小提琴演奏家应有的。只有雌性蟋蟀才有这种能力。为什么？比尔，你可以解释一下吗？
麦奎伊：这样，你走进森林里，听到蟋蟀的叫声。那是几种雄性蟋蟀，都在叫你来抓它。对于我们来说，它们听上去几乎一样，但是它们并非一样。它们摩擦翅膀的速度，即脉率，不同种群是有所不同的。劳雷尔发现雌性知道这些。
赛姆斯：它们也非常擅于识别它们正在寻找的东西。 乔伊斯：哪种脉率是它们同一种群的潜在配偶发出的？这里有一个吹毛求疵的好理由。
赛姆斯：如果你无法判断正确，那你就会错过。
乔伊斯：如果你选了不同种类的雄性进行交配，你就会失败。你就配不出小蟋蟀的种。
麦奎伊：实际上，劳雷尔做了一个巧妙的实验，来测试雌性蟋蟀的辨别能力有多强。她在电脑上合成了很多雄性蟋蟀的叫声。它们和真实的声音一模一样，她通过扬声器将这些声音传给两种种类的雌性蟋蟀。这是一种雄性蟋蟀的叫声，脉冲数为每秒4 3次。
（蟋蟀声的片段）
麦奎伊：一种类别的雌性蟋蟀立刻挤到扬声器上，另一种的雌性一点兴趣都没有。然后劳雷尔播放脉冲数为每秒51次的叫声。
乔伊斯：只是比第一种每秒快了8次而已。
（蟋蟀声的片段）
乔伊斯：另一类忽略第一种叫声的雌性，全都和扬声器谈情说爱起来。而事实是，在北美，有大约140种蟋蟀，每种都将声谱细分为若干个波段。每一个种群就像电台一样识别它们自己的频率。它们是用针头般大小的脑子做到的。
赛姆斯：它们令人觉得很酷的一点是，实际上它们只有很简单的感觉系统，但是它们分析着这个非常复杂的世界。
乔伊斯：赛姆斯花了很多年的时间来记录蟋蟀的情况，才发现了这些。她跟踪它们到它们去的任何地方，比如墨西哥边境的树上，边境巡逻员想知道她到底在搞什么鬼。
赛姆斯：你爬到一棵树上，你知道，巡逻车开过来，停下，然后他们打开灯，问道：“夫人，今晚你在这里做什么？”“噢，我只是在收集蟋蟀。”我回答。他们竟然相信了我，那令我惊诧不已。
乔伊斯：现在，她已经完全适应了蟋蟀的世界，想的、说的都和它们一样。
赛姆斯：（模仿蟋蟀）这是大概60次的。
麦奎伊：没错，劳雷尔自己可以做每秒60次。她说，就像冰箱发出嗡嗡声一样。
乔伊斯：事实上，她总是在倾听蟋蟀、风扇以及空调的振动声。
赛姆斯：我们以为我们真的知道那里有什么在发生，然而我们获得的只是世界上所有声音中极小的一部分。
乔伊斯：对于雷克斯·寇克劳福特来说，他认为这个声音世界的绝大多数东西还有待去探索。
寇克劳福特：这是一个非常热情的世界，但是我们已经听到的声音实在是太少了，所以每个人都可以去到一片杂草丛生的地面或路边，通过那些植物听到以前从未听过的非常有趣的声音。
乔伊斯：经过数百万年演变以及为生存而拼搏形成的声音。
（Soundbite of 1）Treehoppers Chirping）
David Greene （Host）： What you’re hearing are treehoppers. These are insects that communicate with each other by making leaf stems vibrate.
（Soundbite of Crickets Chirping）
Greene： And what you’re hearing now are crickets， whose chirps contain encoded messages that convey life or death information. Scientists discovered this vibrational world of insects through close listening. That’s what we’re calling our project on decoding nature through sound. Today， NPR’s Christopher Joyce and audio producer Bill McQuay of the Cornell Lab of 2）Ornithology profile two scientists who reveal how these insects manage their complex social lives with sound.
Christopher Joyce （Byline）： Lots of animals， including ourselves， can feel sound as well as hear it. Elephants， for example， can communicate by 3）rumbling at low frequencies we can’t hear—whales too.
Bill McQuay （Byline）： But you don’t have to weigh a ton to rumble.
Joyce： No， in fact， you
don’t have to be bigger
than a pea， like a
treehopper， a curious
little sap-sucking insect
that lives on the stems
of leaves. Biologist Rex
Cocroft is a researcher at
the University of Missouri
who studies treehoppers.
In 1999， a team from
NPR’s Radio Expeditions
program 4）rendezvoused
with him at a 5）locust tree in a backyard in Virginia.
McQuay： He was pressing a phonograph needle up against the stem of a leaf.
Rex Cocroft： I’m just trying to get a good contact here between the 6）stylus on the phono 7）cartridge and part of the plant. Mind you， this is not in the manufacturer’s instructions for these phono cartridges.
McQuay： There’s no guidebook for listening to treehoppers. Cocroft created his own. He knew that needles in those cartridges are exquisitely sensitive to vibration. So he connected a wire from the cartridge through an amplifier and to his headphone.
Joyce： And this is what he heard.
（Soundbite of Treehoppers Chirping）
Cocroft： All the signals we’re hearing are signals produced by males.
Joyce： They’re vibrating their 8）abdomens at incredibly highspeed to make an assortment of bizarre sounds. Some are for attracting females. And some are aimed at other males.
（Soundbite of Treehoppers Chirping）
Cocroft： We’re hearing that the kind of purring （imitating treehopper sounds） sound—are sounds that males give either when two males meet each other or when they’re mate-searching on a branch.
McQuay： Normally， we can’t hear any of this. The sound travels inside the stem.
Joyce： So how did such a weird insect telegraph evolve？ Well， Rex says treehoppers， like many insects， have very sensitive legs. And they stand around on stems， which are good at transmitting vibrations. So they used what nature gave them. It gave them a way to communicate. And as social animals， that’s what they need to thrive.
Cocroft： They have so many different forms of social behavior and grouping. And once you have animals living in groups， then you have all sorts of interesting possibilities for communication.
（Soundbite of Treehoppers Chirping）
Joyce： Such as scouts tapping out a signal to others that there’s a predator nearby.
McQuay： Technology revealed this hidden vibrational world， things like phonograph needles and devices called accelerometers that measure vibration. And that ushered in a new generation of insect 9）eavesdroppers.
Laurel Symes： So I’m here tonight in Fort Worth， Texas.
Joyce： Like Laurel Symes， a biologist at Dartmouth College. Symes tunes into vibrations we can hear made by crickets.
Symes： So now we’re looking at a male tree cricket. So the way that the cricket makes sound is to use its wings. And if you look closely at one of the wings， it has a whole bunch of little tiny teeth on it. And that rubs against a vein on the other wing and it causes the whole wing to vibrate sort of like a drum head would.
Joyce： Crickets don’t have a big vocabulary like treehoppers. What they do have is a remarkable ability to discriminate tiny differences in sound frequency， a skill worthy of a concert violinist. It’s the females that can do this. And the reason—Bill， you want to explain that？
McQuay： So you go out in the woods and you hear crickets chirping. They’re males of several species all saying come and get me. To us， they sound pretty much the same， but they aren’t. The speed at which they rub their wings together， the pulse rate， varies from species to species. And Laurel discovered that females know that. Symes： And they’ve evolved to be very， very good at recognizing the exact thing that they’re looking for.
Joyce： Which is the pulse rate of a potential mate from their own species？ And there’s a good reason to be very picky.
Symes： If you don’t get it right， you lose. Joyce： You lose if you pick the wrong species of male to mate with. You won’t make little crickets.
McQuay： Laurel actually rigged up a clever experiment to test how good the females were. She 10）synthesized the chirps of various male crickets on a computer. They were identical to the real sound and she played them for two species of females through a speaker. Here’s one chirp， a male at 43 pulses per second.
（Soundbite of Crickets Chirping）
McQuay： The females of one species immediately hustled over to the loudspeaker. The other females—not interested. Then Laurel used this chirp at 51 pulses per second.
Joyce： Just eight pulses a second faster than the first one.
（Soundbite of Crickets Chirping）
Joyce： And the females of the other species， the one that ignored the first sound， they got all romantic with the speaker. So what’s happening is that each species of cricket， there are about a hundred and forty in North America， has divided up the sound 11）spectrum into sonic niches. Each species identifies with its own frequency like a radio station. And they do it with a brain the size of a pin head.
Symes： And that’s one of the things that makes them cool is they have really simple sensory systems and still they 12）parse this really complex world.
Joyce： Symes spent years recording crickets to figure all this out. She goes wherever they are like up a tree on the Mexican border where border patrol agents wondered just what the heck she was doing.
Symes： You’re part way up a tree and， you know， the vehicle pulls up and stops and they flip on their light， you know—what you doing out here tonight， ma’am？ Oh， I’m just collecting crickets. They believed me； that’s what amazed me.
Joyce： Now she’s so tuned into the cricket world she thinks and sounds like them.
Symes： （Imitating cricket） That’s about 60.
McQuay： Yes， Laurel can do 60 pulses a second herself. She says it’s a lot like a humming refrigerator. Joyce： In fact， she’s always listening to vibrations； crickets， fans， air-conditioners.
Symes： We think that we really know what’s going on out there and we’re getting this tiny slice of all of the sound in the world.
Joyce： As for Rex Cocroft， he says most of this sonic world still remains to be discovered.
Cocroft： It’s a very intense world and so little of it really still has ever been listened to that it is very possible for anyone to go out into a weedy field or roadside and tap into those plants and hear very interesting sounds that no one has ever heard before.
Joyce： Sounds shaped by millions of years of evolution and the struggle to survive.
（角蝉鸣叫的片段）
戴维·格林尼（主持人）：你们听到的是角蝉的叫声。这些昆虫是通过使叶茎振动来相互交流的。
（蟋蟀鸣叫的片段）
格林尼：你们现在听到的是蟋蟀声，它的叫声包含着传递生与死讯息的编码信息。科学家通过近距离的探听发现了昆虫的振动世界。我们把这个项目称为通过声音解码自然。今天，国家公共电台的克里斯托弗·乔伊斯和科内尔鸟类实验室音频制作人比尔·麦奎伊将讲述两位科学家揭秘这些昆虫是如何通过声音来应付他们复杂的社交生活的故事。
克里斯托弗·乔伊斯（撰稿人）：很多动物，包括我们自己，都可以在听到声音的同时感受到声音。比如，大象可以通过发出我们听不到的低频率的低沉声音进行交流，鲸鱼也是如此。
比尔·麦奎伊（撰稿人）：但是你的重量不需要达到一吨才能发出低沉的声音。
乔伊斯：不必，实际上，你只要和豌豆一般大小就可以了，比如角蝉——一种奇异的以叶茎为食的吸汁小昆虫。生物学家雷克斯·寇克劳福特是密苏里大学的研究员，角蝉是他的研究对象。1999年，国家公共电台的《电台探索》节目的一组工作人员与他在弗吉尼亚州一个后院的槐树下会面。
麦奎伊：他将一根唱针压在一片叶子的茎上。
雷克斯·寇克劳福特：我只是想尽量让留声机拾音器的唱针和这株植物的一部分有较好的接触。注意，这并不在这些留声机拾音器制造商的操作指南之列。
麦奎伊：没有任何听取角蝉叫声的指南手册。寇克劳福特创造了自己的方式。他知道留声机拾音器上的唱针对振动异常的敏感。所以，他将拾音器的扩音器与耳机用电线相连。
乔伊斯：这就是他听到的声音。
（角蝉鸣叫的片段）
寇克劳福特：我们所听到的所有信号都是雄性角蝉发出的。
乔伊斯：他们以难以置信的高速度振动他们的腹腔，发出各种奇特的声音。一些声音是为了吸引异性，而另一些则针对其他同性。
（角蝉鸣叫的片段）
寇克劳福特：我们听到那种低沉的声音（模仿角蝉的叫声），是两只雄性角蝉见面时或者他们在树枝上寻找配偶时传递出来的。
麦奎伊：通常我们听不到这些声音。这些声音在叶茎里传播。
乔伊斯：那么，这些奇异的昆虫是怎样发出讯息的呢？呃，雷克斯说，和很多昆虫一样，角蝉有非常灵敏的腿。它们站在叶茎的周围，茎是传播振动声音的优质媒介。所以，它们使用的是大自然的馈赠。自然给予了它们一种交流的方式。作为一种社交型的动物，这是它们繁荣昌盛所必需的条件。
寇克劳福特：它们有很多不同形式的社交行为和种群。一旦你发现群居生活的动物，你就会发现各种各样有趣的交流方式的可能性。
（角蝉鸣叫的片段）
乔伊斯：像这样侦查时敲击出传递给其他人的信号表示附近有捕食者。
麦奎伊：科技展示了这个隐秘的振动世界，像留声机唱针以及叫加速计的这类仪器可以测量振动。这令昆虫探听迈入了一个新的时代。
劳雷尔·赛姆斯：所以，我今晚待在德克萨斯州的沃思堡。
乔伊斯：劳雷尔·赛姆斯是达特茅斯学院的一名生物学家。赛姆斯将蟋蟀发出的振动频率调整为我们能听到的频率。
赛姆斯：所以，现在我们看到的是一只雄性树蟋。这只蟋蟀是通过它的翅膀发出声音的。假如你靠近观察这些翅膀的其中一只，你就会看到它的翅膀上有一整组极小的齿状物。摩擦另一只翅膀上的翅脉，可以使整只翅膀像鼓面一样地振动。
乔伊斯：蟋蟀不像角蝉那样有那么大的词汇量。它们拥有一种卓越的能力，那就是可以分辨声频中细微的差别，这种能力是音乐会的小提琴演奏家应有的。只有雌性蟋蟀才有这种能力。为什么？比尔，你可以解释一下吗？
麦奎伊：这样，你走进森林里，听到蟋蟀的叫声。那是几种雄性蟋蟀，都在叫你来抓它。对于我们来说，它们听上去几乎一样，但是它们并非一样。它们摩擦翅膀的速度，即脉率，不同种群是有所不同的。劳雷尔发现雌性知道这些。
赛姆斯：它们也非常擅于识别它们正在寻找的东西。 乔伊斯：哪种脉率是它们同一种群的潜在配偶发出的？这里有一个吹毛求疵的好理由。
赛姆斯：如果你无法判断正确，那你就会错过。
乔伊斯：如果你选了不同种类的雄性进行交配，你就会失败。你就配不出小蟋蟀的种。
麦奎伊：实际上，劳雷尔做了一个巧妙的实验，来测试雌性蟋蟀的辨别能力有多强。她在电脑上合成了很多雄性蟋蟀的叫声。它们和真实的声音一模一样，她通过扬声器将这些声音传给两种种类的雌性蟋蟀。这是一种雄性蟋蟀的叫声，脉冲数为每秒4 3次。
（蟋蟀声的片段）
麦奎伊：一种类别的雌性蟋蟀立刻挤到扬声器上，另一种的雌性一点兴趣都没有。然后劳雷尔播放脉冲数为每秒51次的叫声。
乔伊斯：只是比第一种每秒快了8次而已。
（蟋蟀声的片段）
乔伊斯：另一类忽略第一种叫声的雌性，全都和扬声器谈情说爱起来。而事实是，在北美，有大约140种蟋蟀，每种都将声谱细分为若干个波段。每一个种群就像电台一样识别它们自己的频率。它们是用针头般大小的脑子做到的。
赛姆斯：它们令人觉得很酷的一点是，实际上它们只有很简单的感觉系统，但是它们分析着这个非常复杂的世界。
乔伊斯：赛姆斯花了很多年的时间来记录蟋蟀的情况，才发现了这些。她跟踪它们到它们去的任何地方，比如墨西哥边境的树上，边境巡逻员想知道她到底在搞什么鬼。
赛姆斯：你爬到一棵树上，你知道，巡逻车开过来，停下，然后他们打开灯，问道：“夫人，今晚你在这里做什么？”“噢，我只是在收集蟋蟀。”我回答。他们竟然相信了我，那令我惊诧不已。
乔伊斯：现在，她已经完全适应了蟋蟀的世界，想的、说的都和它们一样。
赛姆斯：（模仿蟋蟀）这是大概60次的。
麦奎伊：没错，劳雷尔自己可以做每秒60次。她说，就像冰箱发出嗡嗡声一样。
乔伊斯：事实上，她总是在倾听蟋蟀、风扇以及空调的振动声。
赛姆斯：我们以为我们真的知道那里有什么在发生，然而我们获得的只是世界上所有声音中极小的一部分。
乔伊斯：对于雷克斯·寇克劳福特来说，他认为这个声音世界的绝大多数东西还有待去探索。
寇克劳福特：这是一个非常热情的世界，但是我们已经听到的声音实在是太少了，所以每个人都可以去到一片杂草丛生的地面或路边，通过那些植物听到以前从未听过的非常有趣的声音。
乔伊斯：经过数百万年演变以及为生存而拼搏形成的声音。