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| Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of Orthoptera |
Adults nocturnal and diurnal (but avoiding bright sunlight); 7–11 mm long; dark brown with darker markings.
The antennae long, with well over 30 segments. Forewings much reduced in size; much shorter than the abdomen. Hindwings absent (the insects flightless). Foreleg tarsi 3 segmented; mid-leg tarsi 3 segmented; hindleg tarsi 3 segmented. The hind femora smooth. The ovipositor relatively long, with the valves articulated along their length and forming a single structure; 5–7 mm long (slender). The males stridulous. The sound production of the males alary, involving scraping the forewings together, the latter being structurally modified to this end. Auditory organs located in the fore-tibiae (sometimes partly covered by a ventral flap).
British representation. 1 species. Nemobius sylvestris (Wood cricket). Native. Southeast England, central southern England, southwest England, Isle of Wight, and Channel Islands.
Probably feeding mainly on decaying vegetation and associated fungi; found outdoors in natural habitats (found in deep leaf litter, mainly under oaks, holly or bracken).
Classification. Suborder Ensifera; Superfamily Grylloidea; Gryllidae.
Comments. The posterior tibiae with slender, moveable spines.
Illustrations. • Nemobius sylvestris (Gryllidae. Wood Cricket: B. Ent. 293). • Nemobius sylvestris (detail, dissections: B. Ent. 293). • Nemobius sylvestris (B. Ent. 293: legend+text). • Nemobius sylvestris (B. Ent. 293: text, cont.). • Nemobius and Gryllus (Wood and Field Crickets: Lucas). 1 and 2, Nemobius sylvestris (Wood cricket), male (1) and female. 3, Gryllus campestris (Field cricket), male. From Lucas (1920), with approximate lengths excluding appendages.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of Orthoptera. Version: 14th April 2022. delta-intkey.com’.
