Structure of the stridulatory apparatus of some species Heteroceridae (Coleoptera)

The variegated mud-loving beetles use an acoustic channel to
communicate each over. They produce sound by scarping hindleg plectrum over
stridulatory file. This study explores, for the first-time difference on these structure
for Augyles and Heterocerus. The research is based on image the sound-producing
structures on scanning electron microscope. We measured next parameters: the size
of stridulatory file on 100 µm, number of ridges on 50 µm and the size of plectrum.
This paper has demonstrated how these parameters depend on each over for 15
species and the stridulatory organ is vary between male and female (Augyles genus).
The size of plectrum for females of A. delutissimus and A. interspidulus is 441.43 µm
and 423.70 µm against 366.99 µm and 408.72 µm for males of these species. The size
of the stridulatory file for species of Augyles are vary from 383.19 µm (A. flavidus) to
434.86 µm (A. interspidulus). But the number of ridges has the inverse
proportionality of the size of stridulatory file. The maximum number is 53
for A. flavidus and 16 for A. interspidulus. The stridulatory file of Heterocerus
genus is varied from 328.91 µm (H. obsoletus) to 475.89 µm (H. fossor). H. fusculus has
the largest number of ridges (30) and the smallest size of plectrum (322.27 µm)