Do you know where the butterfly's ear is?

Have you ever confided in a butterfly? Maybe they will not understand anything because of the language barrier. But according to a recent study, at least they can hear you, moreover, listen with their wings.

As we all know, some butterflies sound like small holes in their wing stalks. These holes are covered with a thin film, which functions like the eardrum in humans. But the team was led by Dr Jayne Yack, a professor and neurologist at the Department of Biology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, who discovered that at least some types of butterflies sounded like structures themselves. on their wings.

The study is published October 17, 2018, in the journal Biology Letters. They found that the butterfly family (more than 2,500 different butterflies with common species like monarchs) had very strange circuits on the wings, helping them hear. Butterfly wings have gas-filled circuits that stabilize and hold the wing. This is also a distinguishing feature of the bordering butterflies. Yack and her colleagues hypothesized that these bulging vessels are involved in hearing function because they all lead to hearing holes in the stalk of the butterfly wings.

The researchers conducted sound with a frequency similar to that of a human voice, while recording the action of butterfly wings with a laser beam. The bulging vessels of 30 bordering butterflies all react to sound. When a small incision is made on these bulging vessels, their hearing is hampered. So it is clear that this wing structure plays a role in the hearing of butterflies.

The researchers are not sure about the mechanism of operation of these special listening devices. They can help this group of butterflies regulate low-frequency sounds.