Bug o’the Week
by Kate Redmond

Carolina Leaf-roller Cricket a Snowbird Special

Howdy, BugFans,

A while back, BugFan Tom sent these pictures of a Carolina leaf-roller cricket from the Deep South.  Carolina leaf-roller crickets (Camptonotus carolinensis) are in the family Gryllacrididae, the Raspy crickets, a family we haven’t encountered before.  And with good reason – although there are about 600 species in the family, all but one live elsewhere (with one-third of the known species, Australia is especially Raspy-cricket-rich).  There’s only one genus in the family in North America, and only one species in that genus.

Raspy crickets are typically (but not always) wingless and nocturnal.  They make silk with glands in their mouths (their silk is similar to that of silkworms) and use it to construct their daytime retreats in leaves or soil.  The ability to make silk is pretty common among insects (think cocoon), but Raspy crickets are unusual because they can make silk as both nymphs and as adults.  The “rasp” in their name refers a sound they make when they’re disturbed; the catch is that most animals that make noise have ears to hear it, and Raspy crickets don’t.

With bodies that are only about a half-inch long, Carolina leaf-roller crickets (CLRCs) are not imposing.  Some come in green https://bugguide.net/node/view/1110118/bgimage, but most are a warm, honey color, and females have a conspicuous, up-curved ovipositor and a dark patch on their rump that one blogger thinks makes them look waspy.  When it comes to antennae, though, CLRCs are overachievers – a half-inch of cricket may have three to four inches of antennae.  CLRCs get around pretty fast, and although most sources say that they don’t jump, a few say that they do, and quite well. There are some great shots here https://www.marylandbiodiversity.com/view/8177 and here (scroll about half way down) http://listeninginnature.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-silent-ones.html.   The BugLady thinks they’re pretty cute.  

The map at bugguide.net, which relies on submissions of pictures by its members, shows a range that stretches from New York to Florida to Texas to Illinois https://bugguide.net/node/view/29828/data, but the BugLady found additional reports of the cricket in Ontario, North Dakota, and Iowa.  Within that range, they’re found in trees and shrubs in deciduous forests, and they’re easily overlooked.  The crickets are nocturnal (and so is BugFan Tom).   

When they’re disturbed, CLRCs make sound by inflating their abdomen, stiffening a few of their legs, and then flexing the others to do push-ups.  Sound is made as raised “pegs” on the abdomen rub against the legs on the way up and down.  Stridulation is a noise made by the friction of rubbing two body parts together, and this is called defensive stridulation. 

The BugLady was curious about an insect that makes sounds that it can’t hear, so she did a kittle reading about sound production in Raspy crickets, mostly in papers about Australian species of Gryllacrididae.  They discuss defensive stridulation, to which the cricket may add a visual intimidation display and mandible-clicking, and which may get more frenetic if the intruder doesn’t get the message.  Also in the Raspy cricket arsenal are foot-stomping and sending out vibrations by drumming on the substrate during courtship – males and females may perform a drum duet.  

CLRCs are opportunistic feeders that hunt for aphids, caterpillars, and other small, soft critters https://bugguide.net/node/view/1881543/bgimage.  It’s not uncommon for members of the grasshopper and cricket bunch to augment their diet of vegetables with the odd bit of protein, and many of the Gryllacrididae are omnivores and/or seed or nectar-feeders, but the BugLady didn’t find any reference to CLRCs eating plant matter.  They are preyed upon by a wasp named Sphex nudus https://bugguide.net/node/view/982571/bgimage that captures them and drags them into her tunnels to provision her egg chambers https://bugguide.net/node/view/1313/bgimage. 

After a night of hunting, CLRCs spend the day in a shelter that they create by bending a leaf, fastening it with web https://bugguide.net/node/view/212744/bgimage, and sealing themselves in.  Here’s how the Field Guide to Grasshoppers, Katydids, and Crickets of the United States describes the process “During the day, individuals shelter in leaf rolls made by cutting into the edge of a leaf, folding over a flap, and holding the surfaces together with silk spun from the mouth. Somehow, the long antennae are completely contained within the shelter.”  Bugguide.net adds that CLRCs “Sometimes use the pods of Bladdernut, Stahpylea trifolia, as a shelter instead of a leaf.”  One Australian paper on Raspy crickets said that they reuse shelters, that they find their way back to the shelters by laying down a pheromone trail and using their very-sensitive, sensory antennae to follow the trail back, and that the pheromones produced by each individual are not generic but are unique to it.   

There were a few pictures online of CLRCs afflicted by a zombie fungus, a fungus that attacks arthropods, grows into and consumes their organs, and as the coup de grâce, overrides the insect’s brain and directs it to seek high ground rather than shelter.  When the fungus is ready to shed its spores, its victim is up in the breezes where the spores will be distributed most effectively https://bugguide.net/node/view/240236/bgimage.  For more grisly details, see http://jimmccormac.blogspot.com/2018/09/zombie-fungus-rides-again.html.

Thanks for the pictures, Tom.

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/

Bug o’the Week

Gray Ground Cricket

Howdy, BugFans,

So – a cricket is a cricket is a cricket, right?  The BugLady wrote a little bit, early on, about that poster child of crickets, the ubiquitous, chunky, glossy-black Field cricket https://uwm.edu/field-station/crickets/ (she may have to revisit that one).  And, of course, about the Tree crickets that are now serenading her on the prairie.

But, a few years ago the BugLady was browsing through The Songs of Insects by Elliot and Hershberger (it comes with a CD!), and she paused at the chapter about Ground crickets.  They are common, said the book, and if you see something that looks like a small, immature Field cricket, it might just be a Ground cricket.  And it turns out that she has seen what she took to be Field cricket nymphs, and she’s been trying to photograph them, but when they’re out in the open, they don’t dawdle.  Ground crickets are generally found in woods or fields, but one species lives in sphagnum bogs, and another is listed as “marine/intertidal.”

Their pedigree: Ground crickets, aka Pygmy Field crickets are in the order Orthoptera (grasshoppers, katydids, crickets, etc.), in the True cricket family Gryllidae, and in the subfamily Nemobiinae (the Ground crickets).  There are about 250 species of Ground crickets globally, with 25 of those species north of Mexico.  Gray Ground crickets (Allonemobius griseus) are one of nine members of their genus in North America, and because they’re generally larger than other Ground crickets, the Allonemobius are called the Robust Ground crickets.

While Field crickets https://bugguide.net/node/view/1597782/bgimage, are close to an inch long, with a massive head and face, Ground crickets are smaller and not as robust-looking.  Ground crickets have a bristly thorax and abdomen, wings that are either long or short, spiny legs with spurs at the tips, and brown and black coloration that provides camouflage in the leaf litter.  There can be a lot of variation within each species, and identification (even to genus) is not a slam-dunk.  Both sound and habitat can be important clues.

Gray Ground crickets are about 3/8” long (minus their two to three “tails” – the two cerci and the female’s ovipositor), and because of their fuzzy exterior, they look pale https://bugguide.net/node/view/1885604/bgimage, except when they don’t https://bugguide.net/node/view/1915994/bgimage.

They’re found across southern Canada and the northern US, and their preferred haunts are sandy or gravelly and sparsely vegetated – not surprising, then, that the BugLady found this one in the dunes (where someone had thoughtfully dropped some fruit onto the cord walk).  In an interesting article titled “Landscape Ecology of Singing Insects 1: Glacial Influences,” author Carl Strang ties the Gray Ground cricket strongly to “the beaches and dunes around the Lake Michigan edge.” https://natureinquiries.wordpress.com/tag/gray-ground-cricket/.  John Himmelman, in a note on Gray Ground crickets in his Guide to Night-singing Insects, says “Few crickets in our area can take advantage of the dry habitats this species calls home. … The most noticeable feature of the Gray Ground Cricket is the long, bristly fur.  My guess is that it is an adaptation to its habitat, which allows it to retain moisture.”

Ground crickets’ songs include both continuous trills and pulsating buzzes, and although the Gray Ground cricket is more active in the daytime, it sings both day and night.  If your ears are younger than the BugLady’s, you may be able to hear its calls, which Himmelman describes as a “Soft, high-pitched, somewhat sputter trill.”https://orthsoc.org/sina/523a.htmwhich

They are omnivores (as are many Orthopterans), feeding on a variety of low plants, organic debris, and decaying fruit. 

Ground crickets may not be robust, but they’re hardy.  They start calling by early summer and continue until the first frost.  The BugLady has written about the nutritional rewards some male insects like Tree crickets provide for females (it’s called courtship feeding https://uwm.edu/field-station/tree-crickets/).  Female Tree crickets hike themselves up onto the male’s back and sip fluid from a groove on the back of his thorax – while she’s up there, she’s easier for him to mate with, and the nutritious goo she imbibes increases her odds of producing healthy eggs.  Standard stuff.  So the BugLady was unprepared for the female Ground cricket’s somewhat more invasive approach to this concept.  Himmelman tells us that “Some males within this subgroup have a gland that produces a special quaff for the female that has chosen him.  To access the nutritious meal, the female chews off the tip of a spur on the male’s hind tibia.  This ‘opens the cap’ and the fluid flows forth.”  Most Ground crickets overwinter as eggs that are laid in damp soil.

A few days after she found her first Ground cricket in the dunes, the BugLady found a darker, shinier species of Ground cricket at the edge of a wetland at Riveredge Nature Center.  Maybe a Striped Ground cricket, or a Spotted, or an Allard’s, or ….  The BugLady loves finding something she’s never seen before!

Kate Redmond, The BugLady

Bug of the Week archives:
http://uwm.edu/field-station/category/bug-of-the-week/