Oecanthus walkeri
A Walker’s tree cricket with a short burst of singing.
An unusual character for this species is that this is the only Oecanthus species I have witnessed as having a warm up song in the early evening. It sounds like that of O. niveus, which was exciting when we first heard it up in a tepejuage tree, because we had gone to southern Texas with the hope of finding O. leptogrammus (a species which had not been seen or heard in the US in 100 years). This warm up song pattern is puzzling because this species often sings during daytime as well. Their usual song is a continuous trill.
Laurel Symes and I went looking for a species that had not been seen in decades, but ended up discovering a new species.
The two videos below are of Walker’s tree crickets from Texas. The first video is a slow-motion view of the transfer of a spermatophore. The second video shows the female removing the spermatophore a few minutes later, and then consuming it.
This species readily eats vegetation leaving telltale holes.
This is an adult male. Note the bright white color of the back of the base of the antennae. They always have yellow eyes. What makes them different from Four-spotted tree crickets are that their wings are narrower and the filaments of the antennae are dark gray or black.
This is an adult female. They have especially white sides along the pronotum and body.
To read the original description paper: