5. Good Vibrations - Treehoppers

The Insect Singers sound their last with a hidden world of astonishing dynamic range. All on the self-contained world of a plant stem. 5. Good Vibrations - Treehoppers.

Through the science of biotremology, Rex Cocroft and a handful of others have been revealing the extraordinarily sonourous world of vibrational communication by the sometimes bizarre, often beautiful, branch of Cicadmorpha - the Treehoppers. Tiny, yet able to resonate through a blade of grass - transforming it into a green amplifier - or a leaf or plant stem as soon as they hatch out from the egg. Whole societies existing on a single plant communicating their mating calls and warnings and collectively making decisions through their ability to sound every part of their body. Rex Cocroft, now at the University of Missouri, had harboured musical dreams as a student before returning to his first love of the natural world. His entry into this little-studied world came as an extraordinary revelation.

"It was music, it was a sound I had never heard before. Just about everything I heard was completely new, not just not heard by me but really anybody. The truth is, the world is much richer and more beautiful than we ever imagined because the world created by singing insects within our plants is so beautiful and a deep mystery."

As told to producer Mark Burman

All Treehopper recordings courtesy of Rex Cocroft
Music excerpts - Tree Hop from Bug Music by David Rothenberg, Buzz-Music in Harmony with Nature-Treehopper by Superfam Membracoidea Collective

A Storyscape Production for Radio 3