Which animal has ears next to its knees?

If you’ve ever gone out at night, you’ve probably heard crickets singing to each other. But have you ever wondered how they hear each other? Their ears aren’t where you’d expect them to be. A cricket’s ears are actually in its legs!

All the sounds we hear come from the male cricket. He “sings” his song by rubbing special structures on his wings together. If you look under the wing, you’ll see a row of spines along a thick vein in the wing. The cricket makes sound by rubbing the top edge of one wing along the teeth on the other. If you’ve ever made a sound by dragging your fingernail down the teeth of a comb, the cricket wings work something like this.

A cricket’s ears are located just below the knees in a cricket’s front legs. You can even see it if you look closely; it’s the pale spot just below the knee. The ears are good enough to tell the cricket exactly where a sound is coming from.

There are several songs the males can sing. The most familiar song – the one you hear anytime you step outside at night in a place where crickets live — is for attracting the attention of female crickets. The song gets quieter and faster when a female is close by, and changes again if two males run into each other. If danger threatens, crickets even have a warning chirp that tells all the other crickets nearby to be quiet!