Behavior

GROOMING

Tree crickets rely on their antennae to sense their surroundings. They often clean them by slowly passing them through their mandibles to remove debris.

Here he is doing more grooming.

This female is carefully grooming her ovipositor. It is interesting that she is paying no attention to the attached spermatophore (white globule) — she will eventually grasp it with her mouth and consume it.

LEAPING

This male made a 3 foot leap.

This female Snowy tree cricket had been sleeved on a hibisucus plant for 2 days. A male had been calling nearby both nights. The hope was that the male would travel to her., but he didn’t leave his own spot. When she was released, she immediately headed toward the singing male.

Here she is, after having made several long leaps from atop grasses or plants.

MOLTING

This is the entire molting process for a Forbes’ tree cricket.

This Two-spotted tree cricket is undergoing its final molt into adulthood. Note the release of the antennae which were still tethered to the exoskeleton.

This newly emerged tree cricket is eating its exoskeleton while waiting for his wings to dry.

BAFFLES

This Narrow-winged male tree cricket is essentially increasing the size of his wings and thus the volume and concentration of his song – by positioning himself between these two lobes of a leaf.

This is another example of a Narrow-winged tree cricket using leaves as a baffle to enhance the volume of his song. By positioning himself between these two large leaves, he is preventing sound wave loss – in essence he has created giant wings. For a scientific explanation: https://medium.com/life-on-earth/how-to-make-the-perfect-baffle-an-insects-guide-89f3236a1379

MY FIRST TREE CRICKET – 2006

This is the very first tree cricket I met. He chose a sunflower plant growing on my 3rd story patio as a spot from which to broadcast his song. This is the underside of the leaf. He created the opening in the leaf in order to poke his head through to the other side and then blocked most of the hole with his opened wings. The leaf had become a giant wing for him to make his song louder.

Here you can see his antenna sticking out the other side of the hole.

He had made a same-size, same-shaped hole on several of the leaves on the sunflower plant. Each hole was on that same quadrant of the leaf.

This is the tell-tale shape on leaves that suggests a male tree cricket is in the neighborhood.

Just like on my sunflower plant, they often make a single hole on several nearby leaves.

I personally have only witnessed Two-spotted tree crickets making baffle holes. This Narrow-winged tree cricket is singing from a hole on an apple leaf, on a tree with several singing male Two-spotted tree crickets. Perhaps this Narrow-winged male just took advantage of a hole made by a Two-spotted male.

This male Two-spotted tree cricket is making minor adjustments to his baffle hole. He seems to be measuring the dimensions using his body and limbs. This pair was sleeved on a plum tree, with the hopes of witnessing the creation of a hole. Alas, this hole was present one morning – and I had monitored the pair until 11 p.m. the previous night.

This male appears to be grooming or smoothing out the edges of his baffle hole on a grape leaf.

Here the male is singing. You can barely see his wings move up against the hole as he wings. This species usually has a more frantic sound…this male had a beautiful song.
One of my favorite encounters.