Species: Southern Oak Bush-cricket (Meconema meridionale)
Family: Bush Crickets (TETTIGONIIDAE)
Category: Insects (Other)
Location: Widespread
A. Insects (Other)
More extensive information on insects can be found in a separate blog post.
B. Bush Crickets (TETTIGONIIDAE)
Bush-crickets are a large family that includes the bush-crickets and katydids, formerly called the long-horned grasshoppers. Although Bush-crickets and Grasshoppers are related, there are distinct differences between the two families. Crickets stridulate by rubbing their wings together at dusk, their 'ears' being on their front legs. (In contrast, Grasshoppers stridulate by rubbing their hind legs against their wings, their 'ears' being at the base of their abdomen.) Whereas Grasshoppers are mostly herbivores, Crickets are omnivores. Bush-crickets have long, thin antennae (in contrast to the shorter, stockier ones that Grasshoppers have).
We have a photograph-filled blog post about all the grasshoppers and bush-crickets that we have seen in the Cemetery that may be worth your time.
C. Southern Oak Bush-cricket (Meconema meridionale)
The wings of the Southern Oak Bush-cricket remain as tiny flaps, often giving it the resemblance of a large nymph of a different species. This species was considered absent from Britain in the 1980s, so has migrated northwards from Europe in recent decades - which is interesting given that it is flightless.
This is a carnivorous, nocturnal and arboreal species, so we were lucky to photograph it in the Cemetery on a gravestone in mid-afternoon in September 2021. It does not stridulate but instead drums a hind leg on a leaf in short bursts.
The individual photographed here is a male, with a pair of cerci that might be 4mm in length.
Images
Southern Oak Bush-cricket
The Southern Oak Bush-cricket is a carnivorous, nocturnal and arboreal species, so we were lucky to photograph it in the Cemetery on a gravestone in mid-afternoon in September 2021. It does not stridulate but instead drums a hind leg on a leaf in short bursts.
Southern Oak Bush-cricket
This is a male Southern Oak Bush-cricket, photographed in the cemetery in mid-September 2022.
(Photo credit: Stuart MA Ball.)
