Crossword clues for stridulation
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Stridulation \Strid`u*la"tion\, n. The act of stridulating. Specifically: (Zo["o]l.)
The act of making shrill sounds or musical notes by rubbing together certain hard parts, as is done by the males of many insects, especially by Orthoptera, such as crickets, grasshoppers, and locusts.
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The noise itself.
Note: The crickets stridulate by rubbing together the strong nervures of the fore wings. Many grasshoppers stridulate by rubbing the hind legs across strong nervures on the fore wings. The green grasshoppers and katydids stridulate by means of special organs at the base of the fore wings.
Wiktionary
n. A high-pitched chirping, grating, hissing, or squeaking sound, as male crickets and grasshoppers make by rubbing certain body parts together.
WordNet
n. a shrill grating or chirping noise made by some insects by rubbing body parts together
Wikipedia
Stridulation is the act of producing sound by rubbing together certain body parts. This behavior is mostly associated with insects, but other animals are known to do this as well, such as a number of species of fish, snakes and spiders. The mechanism is typically that of one structure with a well-defined lip, ridge, or nodules (the "scraper" or plectrum) being moved across a finely-ridged surface (the "file" or stridulitrum—sometimes called the pars stridens) or vice versa, and vibrating as it does so, like the dragging of a phonograph needle across a vinyl record. Sometimes it is the structure bearing the file which resonates to produce the sound, but in other cases it is the structure bearing the scraper, with both variants possible in related groups. Common onomatopoeic words for the sounds produced by stridulation include chirp and chirrup.
Usage examples of "stridulation".
Then Nordelmatcen was striving to suppress an instinctive stridulation as he tapped his mentor on the thorax and pointed sharply.
Perhaps, if he drank enough, he would be able to forget the screams of Eldon and the others, the harsh stridulation of bees seared and burning in the flame, the desperate fear of being suffocated by the press of their bodies.
The Wart felt a man on either side of him take his hand, as they stood in a circle, and then he noticed that the stridulation of the grasshoppers had begun again.
So it was that, as hour followed hour and the tale of them lengthened into days, he fell into a temper of morbid brooding that was little like the man, and instead of faring abroad and seeking what amusement he might find in the most carefree city of the post-War world, shut himself up in his rooms and moped, indifferent to all things but the knocks at his door, the stridulation of the telephone bell that might announce the arrival of the desired message.
A blur which moved as the air filled with a faint stridulation, a chittering which grew stronger, lowered, seemed to hover over the dim shape, to engulf it.
The sun was baking down now from out of a cloudless sky, and heat-bugs began to chirrup somewhere, producing a harsh and metallic stridulation that sounded amazingly like a buzz saw.
Less prone to panic, adult and adolescent thranx nonetheless broke out in alarmed clicks and stridulations, adding to the general confusion.
Their screams and stridulations melted together into a dull ache at the back of his mind.
Kanddoyd who had not spoken now retreated, his stridulations droning on a lugubrious note.
In the distance, cows lowed, the crickets had begun their nightly stridulations, and the frogs in the Ef lowlands warbled throaty tunes.
The chattering of squirrels above him worried into his head, accompanied by the stridulations of crickets and cicadas anticipating the coming of dark, just a bell or so away.
The new leaves were fully expanded, and the woods behind her sounded with the stridulations of small courting creatures, both insects and amphibians.
A glistening, living flood flowed forward over the ground with a roar of clickings and a persistent overtone of shrill stridulations.
Less prone to panic, adult and adolescent thranx nonetheless broke out in alarmed clicks and stridulations, adding to the general confusion.
Not to mention the modulated stridulations that humans seemed utterly incapable of duplicating.