Wiretapping the insect world
By Chris Clarke

OTTAWA - In the H.H.J. Nesbitt Building at Carleton University hangs a display of 40 moths, eerily life like. Each looks ready to fly at the slightest movement.

Down the hall from the gallery, Carleton biologist Dr. Jayne Yack spends her time listening to butterflies and moths.

She is part of a growing scientific community fascinated with the world of bioacoustics:

• the complex interplay between sounds;
• the ways living creatures have evolved to hear them; and
• how this affects their behavioural and neural evolution.

"'It’s an attempt to understand the neural mechanisms behind behaviour and the evolution of behaviour,” she explains.

Yack's work on the night butterflies of Panama led her to a radical insight into the evolution of butterflies — quite simply, bats created butterflies.

Meanwhile, across Canada, other researchers are having insights of their own.

Researchers like University of Toronto biologist Dr. Andrew Mason, whose work on a parasite fly has led to a startling discovery that may revolutionize the hearing aid industry.

As more researchers lower their microphones to the ground, they are finding a whole new soundscape, a de facto symphony of information.

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