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Meet ormia ochracea, at left, a nocturnal fly who locates prospective hosts (male crickets and katydids), via sound, and then rather coyly uses them as larva hatcheries.
Interesting thing is, according to Penny G. and Peter C., the hearing mechanism in these flies is too small (1.5 mm) for them to determine sound direction via the traditional time-lag-between-ears method à la humans. Uniquely, they only have one auditory chamber containing two bulbae acusticae (basically one ear, two ear drums). These tympana are so close together that the timelag between sounds is only <1-2 microseconds.
To compensate, these flies boast a "cuticular structure" which functions as a sort of leaver between their "ears," magnifying the time and intensity differential between sounds by dampening the vibration from one tympanic membrane to another. So, they get two ears in one, and with hyper-accurate directional hearing.
I thought this was awesome, and Google makes it look like a lot of other people do too (NPR apparently ran a piece on it in '99). Of course, Wikipedia mentions it, as well as £430,000 grant received by Uni. Strathclyde and MRC/CSO Institute for Hearing Research to develop a hearing aid based on it.
And here's the original (1994) article Penny'n'Pete refer to on the subject, if you happen to have an account at $pringerLink.
