As a safety measure against deadly flies, crickets on 2 Hawaiian islands have evolved to be completely silent.
As a safety measure against deadly flies, crickets on 2 Hawaiian islands have evolved to be completely silent.
Typically, male crickets make chirping noises with their back wings as a means of attracting a mate.
On these islands the sound also attracted flies that would use the crickets as incubators for their offspring, resulting in the death of the host.
In fewer than 20 generations, the cricket populations for the most part decided that silence is their best defense and are no longer able to emit their traditional mating call.
In terms of evolutionary time, the changes occurred in what compares to a fraction of a second.
The phenomenon was first observed in the early 2000s on the island of Kauai and by 2005 was starting to flourish in Oahu as well.
At the time, researchers assumed that the silenced crickets appearing on Oahu simply somehow got transported there from Kauai.
More recent examinations have shown that not to be the case.
Each island’s cricket populations experienced the changes independent of one another, an occurrence the experts say is not unheard of. The rapid development of this one, however, makes it far from common.
