Insect Hearing: Selected Historical Vignettes

How insects hear has understandably been influenced by what we know about how vertebrates hear. However, insects are among the smallest of terrestrial animals that detect acoustic flow, and size scale matters for hearing—detecting acoustic pressure is seen in larger insects but less likely for miniscule insects in which detecting particle is more common. The consequences for structure and function of hearing organs are profound. Equally important in comparing insect hearing to vertebrates is the polyphyletic origins of the insect ear versus the likely monophyletic origin of the vertebrate ear—simply put, insect ears can be found nearly anywhere on an insect’s body including appendages. Vertebrate ears are head-locked, one behind each eye, and associated with the jaw bones. These differences provide rich fodder for comparative studies of hearing/flow detection at all levels of biological organization, from molecular to evolutionary and phylogenetic.