This document summarizes different types of communication used by insects, including visual, chemical, tactile, and acoustic communication. It discusses how insects communicate through color patterns, pheromones, touch, dance, sounds, and vibrations to recognize others of their species, find mates, locate food, warn of danger, and more. The key forms of communication are chemical signals like pheromones that convey information between individuals of the same species, and visual signals from patterns, flashes of light, or dances that help with tasks like attracting mates or locating food sources. Insects rely on these innate communication abilities to survive and thrive in their environments.

1. BIOCOMMUNICATION IN INSECTS
MENNI ROSHAN KUMAR
(2014026045)

2. CONTENTS
- Introduction
- Types of insect communication
- Visual communication.
- Chemical communication.
- Tactile communication.
- Acoustic communication.

3. INTRODUCTION
COMMUNICATION
* It is the exchange of information
between individuals.
* Most insect language is innate. And
most of their language is inherited, so
each individual born with a distinctive
vocabulary that shared only with other
members of its own species.

4. Why do insects communicate
?1- Recognition of kin or nest mates.
2- Locating or identifying a member of the opposite
sex.
3- Facilitation of courtship and mating.
4- Giving directions for location of food.
5- Regulating spatial distribution of individuals,
aggregation or dispersal; establishing and
maintaining a territory.
6- Warning of danger; setting off an alarm.
7- Expressing threat or submission.
8- mimicry.

5. Insects may send a communication
signals by:
1- Doing something (e.g. make a noise,
release a chemical or flash a light).
2- By physical makeup (e.g. wing pattern,
body colour)
Like other animals, insects use their
five senses to acquire information about
their environment (taste, touch, vision,
hearing, olfaction (smell)). So insect
communicate by:

6. Types of insect
communication
Visual
communication
Chemical
communication
Tactile
communication
Acoustic
communication
Contd.,

7. Visual communication
The colour patterns and other markings of the
wings (butterflies and moths) facilitate species
recognition (like football players).
Some insects use bright colours, eyespots or
other distinctive patterns to scare a way predators.

8. Contd.,
* Some insects use dance-like body movements to
attract a mate or to communicate with the nest
mate.
* Most visual communicate are effective during
daylight, but some insects can generate their
own light and use visual signals that can be seen
at night.

9. Contd.,
* Fire flies pulses of light are used in courtship
dialogue between a male (usually flying) and a
female (usually perched in the vegetation). Each
species has a unique flash pattern and response
time.

10. Contd.,
*Males of Photinus pyralis
emit a signal J shape
flash during a rising
flight movement and the
female responds with a
single flash after a tow
second intervals.
However ,the male
Photinus comsumilis emit
a series of 3.5 short
flashes and a female
respond after a double
flash.

11. Contd.,
*In alfalfa butterflies, males have U.V.
reflective scales and missing scales is a
sign for male ageing.

12. Chemical communication
It is the most common way of insect communication.
These chemicals are divided into 2 groups.
1- Pheromones: Chemical signals that carry
information from one individual to another member
of the same species. These includes sex attractants,
alarm substance and many other intra-specific
messages.
2- Allelochemicals: Chemical signals that travel
between individual of different species. These
includes defensive signals such as repellents,
compounds used to locate suitable host plant, and
other signals to regulate inter-specific behaviours.

13. Functions of Pheromones:
1- Queen bee emit pheromones that affects the
development of workers bee.
2- Ant use pheromones to recruit nest mates to a
food source.

14. 3- When laying their eggs, some flies moths and
beetles use certain pheromones to repel insects of
the same and competing species, thereby
protecting their progeny.

15. 4- Aphids give alarm pheromones that urge
neighbouring aphids to flee from nearby predators.

16. Tactile communication
Many insects depend on physical contact because
they have poor vision and sound receptors.
Social insects, such as ants, often stroke and groom
each other with their antennae and mouth parts.
However, both touch signals and chemical signals may
be involved in these behaviours.

17. Bees dance
*Bees communicate by dance language.
*Bees use dance as a form of communication for
distance and direction of food sources or nest sites.

18. Types of dances
1- Round dance (running in a
circle, is performed for close
sites)
2- Transitional (or sickle)
dance, For sites
at an intermediate distance
from the hive.
This dance involves running
in a semicircular (or moon)
shape.

19. 3) Waggle dance
*The waggle dance is a language used by honey bee
Apis mellifera. Which give the bees the ability to
communicate the food sources locations.
*The dance consists of different units or words of
honey bee language

20. Acoustic communication
*Sounds are caused by vibrations that can pass
through air, water, and solid structures
*Because sound waves move rapidly through air,
acoustic signals can be quickly started, stopped, or
modified to send a time sensitive message.
*Although people can hear
crickets, many insects make
supersonic sounds that are above a
person's range of hearing. These
supersonic sounds have more than
20,000 vibrations each second.

21. Contd.,
*some grasshopper and moths produce ultrasonic
sounds as 80000 hertz. Entomologist can study these
sounds by using Audi-transducer.
* Most insects detect sounds with a
tympanic membrane in their abdomen
(e.g. grasshoppers and moths) or in the
tibia of the front legs (e.g. crickets)
*Grasshoppers rub their legs against
their wings to advertise their presence.
Many true bugs, beetles and ants make
sounds by rubbing various other body
parts together

22. Contd.,
Vibrational communication is widespread in
insect social and ecological interactions. -
Insects used water surface or plant surface to
produce vibrational sounds. Plants are the most
widely used substrate for transmitting
vibrational signals. Plant species can vary in
their signal transmission properties.

23. Reference :-
- The principles of Insect Physiology.
- The insects structure and function.
- Internet.

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