Different cricket species sing slightly different songs. You can learn to recognize them with a little practice, even if you never find the actual crickets. And to know whether a cricket, katydid or grasshopper is singing, look at the time of day. Crickets start to sing beginning at dusk, just as the Sun is going down. Katydids mainly sing late at night when it is totally dark, and grasshoppers sing during the day.

People in the U.S. Northeast, mid-Atlantic and Midwest will also hear another insect song this spring and summer: cicadas. Two large broods of periodical cicadas, which spend multiyear periods growing underground, will emerge in 2024 to mate. And that will involve a lot of singing.

As with crickets, only male cicadas sing. They make their buzzing and whistling noises using a special structure called a tymbal, which is a membrane on their sides that they vibrate very quickly to produce sound. Think of a drum, but instead of making sound by hitting it on the outside, the surface is vibrated by pulling on it using muscles from the inside.

When many male cicadas sing at once, it can be quite loud. During mass emergences of periodical cicadas, the noise can reach as high as 110-120 decibels – as loud as a jackhammer or a jet engine. If they’re in your neighborhood, you’ll know.

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.

And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and analysis to help you make sense of our complex world.

Read more:
The surprising reason why insects circle lights at night: They lose track of the sky

I have city kids make comic books to create a buzz about mosquitoes and ecology

Floyd W. Shockley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.