Courtship song rhythms in Drosophila yakuba

We studied the courtship songs of males from several strains of Drosophila yakuba. There was clear evidence for two types of pulse songs, generated by the male's wing vibration, which we called 'thud' song and 'clack' song. Clack song was generated by both wings, at distances further from the female than the thud component, which was produced by one-wing displays. The carrier frequency of clack song was considerably higher than that of thud, whereas the interpulse intervals (IPI) of thud song, which usually predominated, were shorter. Furthermore, thud song revealed a cycling of IPIs with a period of about 70 s, significantly longer than that of D. melanogaster or D. simulans. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.