page_title: Zoomusicology
section_title: Insects
hierarchical_section_title: Zoomusicology / Functions and effects of music on animals / Insects
caption_attribution_description: English: Adult form of Ostrinia furnacalis
context_page_description: Zoomusicology is a field of musicology and zoology or more specifically, zoosemiotics. Zoomusicology is the study of the music of animals, or rather the musical aspects of sound or communication produced and received by animals. Zoomusicology as a field dates to François-Bernard Mâche's 1983 book Music, Myth, and Nature, or the Dolphins of Arion, and has been developed more recently by scholars such as Dario Martinelli, David Rothenberg, Hollis Taylor, and Emily Doolittle.
  Zoomusicology is a separate field from ethnomusicology, the study of human music.
context_section_description: One potential barrier in the study of zoomusicology is that there are some forms of music produced by various animals which humans are incapable of hearing. This music is very low in amplitude and is known as quiet song, whisper communication, or soft song. This low amplitude music has been shown in birds, as well as insects and is linked to behaviour. Moth species have been shown to have developed the ability to communicate using ultrasonic sounds, and this ability has transferred over to their production of soft songs. In the Asian corn borer moth, Ostrinia furnacalis, males produce an ultrasonic soft song to initiate courtship behaviour. The song that the male produces is so quiet that the female must be within a range of three centimeters in order to hear the song. In hearing the song, the female stays in one place and is completely still, this allows the male to initiate mating behaviour. The reason that the female remains still, is because this song sounds very similar to sounds that a bat would produce. The female therefore remains still in order to avoid potential predation. There is of course another added benefit to this soft song produced by the male Asian corn borer moth, and that is that the song is so quiet that it decreases the males’ predation risk. Although these soft songs are far less well known to the general public, they are an important aspect of zoomusicology and the further understanding of animal behaviour.    
caption: Imago O furnacalis
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