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About the Cover
Cover: Male cicadas produce conspicuous calling songs that attract mates over long distances. Such sexual signals are received by tympanal membranes localised in the abdomen. To understand how these thin membranes carry out the first step in the process of audition, Sueur et al. (pp. 4115−4128) measured tympanal vibrations in Cicadatra atra in response to acoustic playbacks. They showed that the resulting nanoscale vibrations are organised as travelling waves across the tympana, providing the mechanical basis for the discrimination of sound frequencies. The cover shows a calling male, in his typical upside-down position, and the tympanal travelling wave generated by his song on the tympanum. Photo by Stéphane Puissant/OPIE-LR.
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