Langstone, Hampshire There's no mistaking its sewing-machine stridulation, but the great green bush-cricket is fiendishly difficult to locateSpeckled bush-crickets (Leptophyes punctatissima) are prolific in my garden. The nymphs hatch in May and I often spot them sunning themselves on bramble or nettle leaves. During the summer they become rather elusive, moving deeper and higher into the vegetation. But come autumn the humpbacked, spindly-legged, adults reappear.Attracted to light they often stray indoors and I find them scaling my bedroom walls. Bush-crickets are crepuscular, becoming active in the late afternoon and singing into the night. They are more closely related to grasshoppers than crickets. However, unlike grasshoppers, which rub a row of stridulatory pegs on the inside of the hind legs against their forewings, bush-crickets stridulate by chafing their forewings together. Continue reading...
Country diary:
13. října 2017 6:37
Příroda
Celý článek: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/13/country-diary-bush-crickets-hide-in-plain-sight
Zdroj: The Guardian