Advanced Guide to Song Identification
There are a number of closely related species of singing insects that sound similar to the human ear. Many are difficult to see and even harder to collect. Even then, their physical appearance may be similar. However, we can use their songs to separate these species. Since the introduction of the sound spectrogram in the 1950’s, humans have been able to “see” sound. Often called sonagrams or sonograms, these graphical representations of sound allow us to examine the fine structure of the individual notes produced by these insects.
It is now easy to produce these sound spectrograms on your computer with free or inexpensive software. Our favorite programs for producing spectrograms are; Audacity, Raven Lite, and Raven Pro. These programs allow you to display more than one spectrogram on the same screen, thus facilitating the direct comparison of different recordings.
Read the instruction manual for your software carefully, paying particular attention to the section for displaying and creating spectrograms. There are a few settings that determine the clarity of the final graph. In Raven Lite and Raven Pro, the ability to continuously change the “window” size is a real plus. This allows you to carefully tweak the appearance of the output to maximize the resolution between the frequency and time domains. You should use the same “window” type and size for each spectrogram when directly comparing similar sounds. Small changes in these parameters can profoundly affect the look and clarity of the resulting graphical display.
Here is an example of the sound spectrograms of Allard’s and Tinkling Ground Crickets created in Raven Pro using the Hann window type and a window size of 155.
While both species sing at roughly 7.5 kHz, the timing of the chirps is very different, Tinkling being about half the rate of Allard’s. The shape of the individual notes or syllables is very similar.
Here is another example comparing two tree cricket species, the Four-spotted and Fast-calling Tree Crickets (window type =Hann, size= 133).
Again, we can easily see that one species is singing at a higher rate than the other, but we can also see that the shape of the individual syllables is slightly different. So, while a recording of a cool Fast-calling Tree Cricket might sound similar to a recording of a warmer Four-spotted Tree Cricket, the shape of the individual syllables would clearly differentiate the two species.
Direct comparisons of the sound spectrograms of an unknown singer with exemplars of known species is a great way to nail down an identification. This kind of careful analysis has shown that the known range of some species is not very well established. There is also evidence that several species of singing insects are on the move, following warmer weather as it creep farther and farther north.
The key to producing outstanding looking spectrograms is to start with a high quality recording. The clearer the field recording the clearer the spectrogram. While the Raven software prefers to work on digital files that are mono, 22kHz sampling rate, and 16 bit word length, it is best to record at the highest rate your recorder can achieve and then down sample the files before loading them into Raven. We routinely record singing insects at 48-96kHz sampling rate and 24 bit word length. Getting the microphones as close to the singer as possible is also a requirement. Be sure to monitor the recording with headphones and watch the meters on the device to prevent overload. If you distort the original field recording, there is no way to repair it in the lab.
Currently, we are recording with Sound Devices 702 recorders, Sennheiser microphones (ME 62, ME 66, MKH 20, and MKH 60) as well as the Telinga Pro 7 stereo Dat parabolic system. Stellar recordings can be made with any number of currently available digital recorders. The basic requirements are the ability to; manually control the recording level, monitor the recording using headphones, use an externally connected microphone, and to be able to record at a minimum of 48kHz sampling rate and 24 bit word length.
A note on sampling rates: The higher sampling rates of 96-192kHz are reserved for the smaller meadow katydids and the conehead katydids. It is amazing how much energy there is in the high frequency range of some of these insects. While the microphones that are listed above are not designed to produce a flat frequency response above 20kHz, they do an acceptable job of recording these higher frequencies for our needs. As long as the known and unknown insects are recorded with the same microphone, direct comparisons can be made. However, the shape and timing of delivery of syllables can be compared from one recording to another no mater what equipment was used to secure the samples.
Our Insect Musicians:
Thumbnail Guide to All Species
Navigate to Species Pages:
Spring and Fall Field Cricket
Southern Wood Cricket
Southeastern Field Cricket
Eastern Striped Cricket
Japanese Burrowing Cricket
Ground Crickets (Nemobiinae):
Allard’s Ground Cricket
Carolina Ground Cricket
Confused Ground Cricket
Striped Ground Cricket
Southern Ground Cricket
Sphagnum Ground Cricket
Variegated Ground Cricket
Spotted Ground Cricket
Tinkling Ground Cricket
Cuban Ground Cricket
Tree Crickets (Oecanthinae):
Black-horned Tree Cricket
Forbes’s Tree Cricket
Broad-winged Tree Cricket
Davis’s Tree Cricket
Fast-calling Tree Cricket
Four-spotted Tree Cricket
Narrow-winged Tree Cricket
Pine Tree Cricket
Snowy Tree Cricket
Two-spotted Tree Cricket
Trigs and Bush Crickets (Eneopterinae & Trigonidiinae):
Jumping Bush Cricket
Columbian Trig
Handsome Trig
Say’s Trig
Thomas’s Trig
Slow-tinkling Trig
Mole Crickets (Gryllotalpidae):
Northern Mole Cricket
Southern Mole Cricket
FAMILY DESCRIPTION
Saltmarsh Meadow Katydid
Short-winged Meadow Katydid
Slender Meadow Katydid
Woodland Meadow Katydid
Black-sided Meadow Katydid
Long-tailed Meadow Katydid
Straight-lanced Meadow Katydid
Agile Meadow Katydid
Dusky-faced Meadow Katydid
Stripe-faced Meadow Katydid
Nimble Meadow Katydid
Black-legged Meadow Katydid
Common Meadow Katydid
Gladiator Meadow Katydid
Handsome Meadow Katydid
Lesser Pine Meadow Katydid
Long-spurred Meadow Katydid
Red-headed Meadow Katydid
Coneheads (Copiphorinae):
FAMILY DESCRIPTION
Round-tipped Conehead
Nebraska Conehead
Robust Conehead
Slightly Musical Conehead
Sword-bearing Conehead
False Robust Conehead
Marsh Conehead
Black-nosed Conehead
True Katydids (Pseudophyllinae):
FAMILY DESCRIPTION
Common True Katydid
False Katydids (Phaneropterinae):
FAMILY DESCRIPTION
Clicker Round-winged Katydid
Common Virtuoso Katydid
Rattler Round-winged Katydid
Oblong-winged Katydid
Great Angle-wing
Lesser Angle-wing
Broad-winged Bush Katydid
Curved-tailed Bush Katydid
Fork-tailed Bush Katydid
Northern Bush Katydid
Texas Bush Katydid
Treetop Bush Katydid
Modest Katydid
Shield-backed Katydids (Tettigoniinae):
FAMILY DESCRIPTION
American Shieldback
Least Shieldback
Protean Shieldback
Robust Shieldback
Roesel’s Katydid
Band-winged Grasshoppers (Oedipodinae):
Boll’s & Carolina Grasshoppers
Marsh Meadow Grasshopper