Infos
2026
Fascinating publication on synchronisation between crickets and fireflies. Published in PLOS Biology by Guy Amichay, Vijay Balasubramanian and Daniel M. Abrams, partly initiated by a conversation Guy and I had back in Thailand in 2022 whilst working on Synchronicity: Chimera States.
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3003735
A widespread animal communication tempo may resonate with the receiver’s brain
During fieldwork in Thailand, we observed nearly identical tempos of co-located flashing fireflies and chirping crickets. Motivated by this, we survey published data showing that an abundance of evolutionarily distinct species communicate isochronously at ~0.5–4 Hz, suggesting that this might be a tempo “hotspot.” We hypothesize that this timescale may have a universal basis in the biophysics of the receiver’s neurons. We test this by demonstrating that small receiver circuits constructed from elements representing typical neurons will be most responsive in the observed tempo range.