How do insects hear?

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CrowdScience listener Lauren from Belgium has near-complete hearing loss in one ear, because all the sensory hair cells in her inner ear have died. This got her thinking about how complicated the human ear is and whether there are other animals with simpler ears, in particular insects. Do they even have ears? Presenter Caroline Steel hears Lauren’s call and sets off on a hunt for insect ears. She discovers that crickets have them just below their knees. In Fernando Montealegre-Zapata’s laboratory at the University of Lincoln in the UK, she serenades a cricket to test just how much of her voice it can hear. But crickets aren’t the only ones with ears. Invertebrate neurobiologist Natasha…