Radio 4's Matieral World: Speckled Bush Crickets at the Wittenham Clumps
On 9th October Radio 4's Material World presenter Quentin Cooper joined Dr David Robinson at the Wittenham Clumps, owned and managed by the Northmoor Trust, on his hunt for speckled bush crickets.
David Robinson's work concentrates on recording the ultrasonic calls between male and female crickets and the technologies used to measure and record them.
The speckled bush cricket is notable for the brief and extremely fast communication between males and females. In a typical exchange, which is used to bring the sexes together, the male calls with a series of around five short bursts of ultrasound each only one thousandth of a second long, with about the same time between each burst.
Listen to the programme on the Radio 4 Material World website.
Read about the making of the programme and learn more about the speckled bush cricket on the open2.net website >
