Male tree crickets have beautiful wings.
LIFE STAGES: A nymph emerging from the egg from inside a stem.
They are only 3-4mm long when they emerge.
BEHAVIORS: Newly emerged nymph trying out its antennae for the first time.
MOLTING: A newly molted adult Narrow-winged tree cricket.
Male tree crickets have different song patterns, rates and frequencies.
Here are examples of songs for some species in the US.
Some trill, some chirp, and some have interrupted trilling.
Slow trilling: Pine tree cricket (Oecanthus pini) on a White Pine tree
Fast trilling: Forbes’ tree cricket (Oecanthus forbesi). Note how the volume increases as the breeze changes the position of the open wings in relation to the camera.
Short Chirps: Snowy tree cricket on a potted geranium plant
Long chirps: Alexander’s tree cricket (Oecanthus alexanderi)
Interrupted trilling: Narrow-winged tree cricket on a potted coleus plant
A Two-spotted tree cricket singing through a baffle he made on a grape leaf.
Top view of Four-spotted tree cricket in a field of broom plants. The slow motion appearance of the wings opening and closing at the beginning is some kind of technical illusion. The frame rate of the camera is very similar to the pulse rate of the song. Even the slowest rates, in the 30’s, still means the wings are opening and closing 30 TIMES PER SECOND !
Probably my best photo of tree crickets….a pair of Texas tree crickets.
