Each week, Atlas Obscura is providing a new short excerpt from our upcoming book, Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders (September 17, 2024). To our ears, a chirping cricket is a peaceful addition to an otherwise quiet night. But the cricket himself isn’t going for laid-back. He wants to be seductive, debonair, and loud. That way females will hear, come over, and—to quote a human song going for a similar vibe—pour some sugar on him. This is harder for some crickets than others, especially those that…
