Detecting insects with sound

Food industry (e.g. flour industry) seems to be able to detect some
insect pests by analyzing sounds of feeding larvae (analyzing the
sound frequencies). Larvae of wood boring insects (e.g. anobia
punctatum) and textile pests (e.g. atagenus megatona, anthrenus
spp., tineole bisselliella) also make a lot of noise during their
destroying activity. Being able to register and analyse this
specific sound--well known e.g. to people living in old wooden
houses--might be of interest to detect an infestation in museum
objects and may help to reduce chemical or heat treatments in pest
management. We think that objects coming into a collection might be
put under quarantine and sounds recorded selectively (recording only
when "noise" is detected by the microphone) for at least several
weeks in order to avoid the period of dormancy. Has there been any
research on this subject? Is there anybody familiar with biological
or technical aspects of such a system and would be interested to
cooperate in research? We have not yet done much research, but in
order not to reinvent the wheel, we would appreciate any comment.

Joachim Huber & Karin von Lerber
Prev art GmbH, Konzepte fur die Kulturgutererhaltung
Oberseenerstrasse 93
CH-8405 Winterthur
Switzerland

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 13:2
                   Distributed: Monday, June 21, 1999
                        Message Id: cdl-13-2-006
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