2.5. Male song-stimulated stridulation of virgin and mated
grasshopper females
The responsiveness of Ch. biguttulus females to male calling
song has previously been used to assess female reproductive readiness (von Helversen, 1972; von Helversen and von Helversen,
1997). To study the potential re-establishment of female ‘active
copulatory readiness’ after copulation, Ch. biguttulus females were
placed into a 15 cm 12 cm 12 cm observation cage heated to
30 8C and stimulated with recordings of a male calling song. The
acoustic stimulus that included five repetitions (separated by 5 s
pauses) of a calling song containing three sequences (entire
duration: 10 s) had previously been used to assess female
responsiveness (Weinrich et al., 2008).