When the air of warm summer nights is buzzing and whirring with the songs of male bushcrickets (also known as katydids), our ears perform a series of tasks enabling us to perceive these acoustic communication signals. Airborne sound waves travel through the ear canal of the outer ear and impinge on the tympanic membrane, causing mechanical vibrations. These are transformed via the three ossicles in the middle ear into fluid vibrations of the inner ear cochlea, which in turn, activate sensory receptor cells, thereby transforming the mechanical energy into electrical signals (1). In our ears, this transduction process involves an ∼25-mm-long ear canal, a tympanic membrane 8 to 10 mm in diameter, and ∼3,500 inner hair cells distributed along the 35-mm-long basilar membrane (2). Female bushcrickets, the males’ intended audience, have to perform essentially the same feat but with miniature hearing organs located not on the head but on the upper tibia of the forelegs. These ears are typically only around 1 to 2 mm in size and contain rarely more than 100 neurons (3). Nevertheless, these tiny insect ears share a surprising amount of structural and functional similarities with our ears, some of which Vavakou et al. (4) uncover.

中文翻译：

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丛林蟋蟀微型听觉器官的听觉调谐 [神经科学]

当温暖的夏夜的空气随着雄性丛林蟋蟀（也称为蟋蟀）的歌声嗡嗡作响时，我们的耳朵会执行一系列任务，使我们能够感知这些声学通信信号。空气声波穿过外耳的耳道并撞击鼓膜，引起机械振动。这些通过中耳中的三个听小骨转化为内耳耳蜗的流体振动，进而激活感觉受体细胞，从而将机械能转化为电信号 ( 1 )。在我们的耳朵中，这种转导过程涉及一个约 25 毫米长的耳道、一个直径为 8 至 10 毫米的鼓膜，以及沿着 35 毫米长的基底膜分布的约 3,500 个内毛细胞（2）。雌性丛林蟋蟀，雄性的目标观众，必须执行基本相同的壮举，但微型听觉器官不在头部，而是在前腿的上胫骨上。这些耳朵的大小通常只有 1 到 2 毫米左右，并且很少包含超过 100 个神经元 ( 3 )。尽管如此，这些微小的昆虫耳朵与我们的耳朵有着惊人的结构和功能相似之处，其中一些是 Vavakou 等人的。( 4 )揭开。