Insect communication and behaviour
Insect communication and behaviour: honeybee waggle dances convey food direction and distance. Many ants mark food routes with pheromones. Many fireflies use flashes to find mates. Many male crickets chirp by rubbing parts of their front wings. The eastern North American monarch migration covers long distances across several generations.
What a learner can do afterwards
- Describe at least three ways insects communicate such as the bee waggle dance, ant pheromone trails, and firefly light signals
- Explain how a honeybee's waggle dance conveys direction and distance to food
- Describe the eastern North American monarch migration and explain its long distance, use of navigation cues and passage across several generations
1 · Read
You have seen ants and honeybees share jobs in colonies. They also send signals. Insects can communicate through movement, chemicals, light or sound. Many fireflies use flashes to find mates. Many male crickets attract mates by chirping as they rub parts of their front wings together.
A honeybee finds clover and returns to the hive. On a vertical comb, she makes a straight waggle run and loops back. The run's direction shows where food lies relative to the sun. Straight up means fly towards the sun; straight down means fly away from it. The time spent waggling shows distance: a longer run means the food is farther away.
Many ants mark food routes with chemicals called pheromones. Other ants detect these chemicals with their antennae and follow the route. It need not be a straight path. If ants stop adding chemicals, the scent fades.
Many monarchs in eastern North America fly south in autumn to mountain forests in central Mexico, sometimes thousands of miles. After winter, surviving adults fly north and lay eggs. Their offspring spread farther north. A later generation makes the autumn journey south. The annual migration spans several generations.
An autumn monarch may be travelling south for the first time. It inherits abilities that help it navigate, rather than learning a route from its parents. Its sun compass uses the sun's position with an internal body clock. This helps it keep a direction as the sun moves across the sky.
Insects share information through dance, scent, light, and sound, not through words.
Lesson, questions and flashcards written for this dataset.
Readings written for this dataset. Linked videos: Mood lighting, mating, and murder: The scintillating lives of fireflies, by Emily A. Geest, and Can animals be deceptive?, by Eldridge Adams, for TED-Ed. Video rights remain with their publishers.
More to read
Finding a mate with flashes
Fireflies are beetles. In many species, adults use light signals to find mates. A male flashes as he flies. A female may reply, helping him find her location.
The timing matters. Different flashing species have different patterns and reply times. These signals help fireflies recognise mates of their own species. They are not one code shared by all fireflies.
Some firefly species do not use light for adult courtship and use chemical signals instead. A flashing firefly shows one way insects pass information, not a rule for every kind of firefly.
The wings behind a cricket's chirp
Many male crickets make calls by rubbing parts of their front wings together. A ridged part of one wing moves against a scraping part of the other. The resulting vibrations produce sound.
A calling song can attract a female. Crickets can also make other songs during courtship or meetings with rivals. Another cricket can respond to these sounds even though no words are spoken.
Many crickets call at night, but their behaviour varies by species. A cricket's sound, a firefly's light and an ant's scent trail carry signals through different senses.
Explore more
2 · Watch
به انگلیسیTake it off screen
Where it sits
Learn first
Optional connections
This opens up
Nothing builds on it yet.
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.