We use singing insects as models. Two big stars in our research programme are the Hawaiian field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus and a deadly, eavesdropping parasitoid fly, Ormia ochracea. Under selection pressure from the fly, male crickets in multiple Hawaiian populations recently lost the ability to sing due to genetic mutations affecting wing structure which we call ‘flatwing’, ‘curlywing’, and ‘short-wing’. We discovered that silence has evolved independently no fewer than five times through an astonishing diversity of wing modifications – see the Gallery of Endless Forms, Most Beautiful below. Our findings show that adaptation to extreme conditions can occur many more times independently, and far more quickly, than previously appreciated. The group’s research is geared towards determining how that happens: from genetic to phenotypic to ecological levels.