Hear me roar (Image: Nigel Cattlin/Alamy)
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THEY are rather tiny to be kings of the jungle. Two species of mirid bug make sounds similar to the roars of big cats. Calls like these have never been detected before among insects, and we鈥檙e not sure how the bugs make them.
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The roars are too weak for our ears to pick them up, but they do cause minute vibrations in leaves where the bugs live. of the Edmund Mach Foundation in San Michele all鈥橝dige, Italy, and his team exploited that to make them audible using a laser vibrometer, which detects and amplifies the leaf vibrations. 鈥淲hen you listen to these sounds through headphones, you鈥檇 think you were next to a tiger or lion,鈥� says Mazzoni.
If two males were put on the same leaf, a competitive roaring duet would follow. When one insect heard the other roar, it always followed suit. This suggests that, as in big cats, the calls might serve to establish dominance or attract females. Female mirids do not roar (Journal of Insect Behavior, ).
Curiously, mirid bugs only roar while walking. And unlike crickets, they make their calls without visibly vibrating or rubbing any part of their body. 鈥淚t must be a specific organ in the abdomen producing the roars,鈥� Mazzoni says. He has yet to find anything that fits the bill.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淢ystery of insects that roar like lions鈥�