Have you ever tried to tell people something by buzzing at them? Or have you and a friend ever had a nice chat by scratching your bodies? No? well, you would have if you were an insect, for this is how insects” talk” to one another. Human beings use a variety of ways to talk to one another. As well as producing sounds from their mouths, they also use their faces, arms and hands to communicate. People smile when they are happy or frown when they are sad; and they use their fingers to point-out which way to go or to simple say “quiet”.
Insects, however, usually use only one way to communicate. The buzzing noise of bee and wasps comes from the tiny air pipes in different parts of their bodies. The air rushing through these pipes makes them vibrate, thus producing the noise we hear. The cicada (si-kay-duh), a large fly-like insect, is probable the noisiest “talker” of all the insects. The skin on its stomach acts like the skin on a drum, and the cicada beats this drum by moving its stomach muscles. These muscle movements make the drum tighten and loosen, thereby producing the noise you hear. Another noise talker is the katydid, which is a kind of grasshopper. It scrapes its front legs and wings together, as if it were playing a violin, and makes a noise that sounds just like an old creaky door. The katydid’s ears are located on its forelegs, rather than on its head. Every insect knows but one way to communicate. It is a method proven effective by all insects of their kind for millions of years. It is therefore easy for insects of the same family to “talk” together or find one another. There are even times when the communicative sounds serve to scare away their enemies.
Humans have many different ways of communicating with one another, whereas insects tend to have one way of doing this depending on the particular family of insect. This paper has discussed some of the way certain insects can communicate with each other.