A new voice in the chorus

On the benefits of random collecting The sound of little hooves in the night

A new voice in the chorus

A pair of Jumping Bush Crickets (Orocharis saltator) from Massachusetts. Females have long, needle-like ovipositors, which they use to lay eggs deep into the stems of plants.

Yesterday evening, right before the weather turned nasty, as I stood on the deck over my garden I suddenly caught a sound wave, one that I immediately recognized but had never before heard around my house. I ran to grab my recorder and was able to capture a snippet of the call. Seeing me pointing my microphone towards his house, a neighbor approached me warily, inquiring if I am trying to find the property line. I explained what I was doing and he left, satisfied in his knowledge that I am just feeble minded, and not trying to sue him for his land.

The call was that of the Jumping Bush Cricket (Orocharis saltator), a species I first encountered a couple of years ago in Cambridge, MA. Since then I have been looking for other places where this pretty animal might live, but never expected to find it in my backyard. It is a species that belongs to the chiefly tropical subfamily Eneopterinae, and makes a fine addition to the chorus of crickets around my house, which now includes 12 species:

Jumping Bush Cricket (Orocharis saltator)

Handsome trig (Phyllopalpus pulchellus)

Say’s trig (Anaxipha exigua)

Carolina ground cricket (Eunemobius carolinus)

Allard’s ground cricket (Allonemobius allardi)

Striped ground cricket (Allonemobius fasciatus)

Two-spotted tree cricket (Neoxabea bipunctata)

Snowy tree cricket (Oecanthus fultoni)

Spring field cricket (Gryllus veletis)

Fall field cricket (Gryllus pennsylvanicus)

House cricket (Acheta domesticus) (introduced)

Eastern ant cricket (Myrmecophilus pergandei)