Songs of Insects

Tinkling Ground Cricket (Allonemobius tinnulus)

Song of a Tinkling Ground Cricket (scroll down for explanation and additional recordings!).

Walking deep within the hardwoods of the eastern and midwestern states, one often hears lovely tinkling notes coming from the leaf litter. This is the haunt of the Tinkling Ground Cricket. He is the deep woods counterpart to the Allard’s Ground Cricket, and he can usually be recognized by the slow pace of his song — you can just about keep pace while counting his chirps.

Tinkling Ground Cricket

This is most likely the cricket that Rachel Carson referred to as a “fairy bell in the woods.”

Song: A series of bright tinkling notes, given at an even tempo, generally slow enough to count. Pulse rates vary from 5–8 per second, depending on temperature. The dominant frequency is about 7 kHz. Tinkling and Allard’s sound similar but can be differentiated by habitat and pulse rate. However, a warm Tinkling may sing nearly as fast as a cold Allard’s, so exercise caution, especially in oak woods where there are open, grassy areas. Of course, it is great fun to be in a location where you can hear both species at the same time and note the distinctive difference in their songs.

Audio spectrogram of Allonemobius tinnulus song. Notice that there are 7 chirps/second.