What sound-producing organ lets a male cricket call by rubbing its wings together?

A male cricket calls by using a stridulatory organ, a sound-producing arrangement on its wings. One forewing bears a ridged file, while the other has a scraper that moves across the ridges.

This rubbing action is called stridulation. The vibrating wing structures create the familiar cricket chirp, and the wing surfaces can help radiate the sound. Males use these calls chiefly in courtship and territorial interactions, while females may use the sound to locate potential mates.

Cricket species differ in call rhythm, pitch, and temperature dependence. In many species, warmer conditions speed up calling and other physiological processes, which helped inspire temperature-based cricket counting methods.

The answer is not “ears,” even though crickets have hearing organs called tympana. Their tympana detect sound; they do not produce the chirp. The syrinx belongs to birds, and the larynx is the principal voice organ of mammals and several other vertebrates.