echeme

plural echemes

1. biologyA unit of sound produced by insects that can be broken down into multiple physically more basic sound units (syllables).

   In sunlight, echemes are shorter, but echeme intervals are longer.

   2021, Wilbur L. Hershberger, “Calling and courtship songs of the rare, robust ground cricket, Allonemobius walkeri”, in Journal of Orthoptera Research, volume 30, number 1, →DOI, pages 81–85

   3 more examples

   This new term, then, is echeme, defined as: a first-order assemblage of syllables.

   [1976, W. B. Broughton, “Proposal for a new term ‘echeme’ to replace ‘chirp’ in animal acoustics”, in Physiological Entomology, volume 1, number 2, →DOI, pages 103–106

   The general pattern of the low-frequency sweep is repeated in each echeme and does not appear to change as the insect matures[…].

   1978 July, William Latimer, Aspects of song interaction between the closely related bush cricket genera Platycleis and Metrioptera, DPhil Thesis, City of London Polytechnic (British Library’s microfilm copy), page 44

   [T]he echemes of yersini have a uniform sound, lacking the 'metallic' unevenness characteristic of the echeme-sequences of biguttulus.

   1988, D.R. Ragge, W.J. Reynolds, “The songs and taxonomy of the grasshoppers of the Chorthippus biguttulus group in the Iberian Peninsula (Orthoptera: Acrididae)”, in Journal of Natural History, volume 22, number 4, →DOI, pages 897–929