This month will be treated as a miscellaneous clean-up and will include: articles, references, books, photos, videos, websites, comments and questions. I will end with some of my favorite videos.
Note: This completes my one full year of daily entries regarding tree crickets!
DEC 31 – Best Singer Ever !
This male Neoxabea cerrojesusensis has the absolute best intro to his song…and seemed like the best candidate for preparing for the new year. This species was described from Nicaragua.
DEC 30 – Snowy Tree Cricket Singing
DEC 29 – Four-spotted Tree Cricket Video
DEC 28 – Close Up of Ovipositor Movements
I was surprised when I saw this sliding of one shaft over the other close up this year. I had read about it, but never fully appreciated what was happening until I caught this on video of a female Forbes’ tree cricket ovipositing.
DEC 27 – Snowy on Geranium
Singing tree crickets can be found on many different species and types of vegetation – native, non-native and even potted.
DEC 26 – Borrowing a Baffle
There were several Two-spotted tree crickets in a small patch of apple trees, and this Narrow-winged tree cricket ‘borrowed’ one to amplify its call. I personally have never witnessed a Narrow-winged make these holes, but have seen them a few times using a hole made by a Two-spotted.
DEC 25 – A Newborn Tree Cricket
DEC 24 – The Mesmerizing Calling of Neoxabea bipunctata on a Cool Evening
DEC 23 – Taxonomy Changes in 2022
This image shows ‘my understanding’ of the changes to Oecanthinae based on DNA testing here: Campos, L.D.de, Souza-Dias, P.G.B., Audino, J.A., Desutter-Grandcolas, L. & Nihei, S.S. (2022) The fifth family of the true crickets (Insecta: Orthoptera: Ensifera: Grylloidea), Oecanthidae defin. nov.: phylogenetic relationships and divergence times. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 20, 1–44.
I study only Oecanthus and Neoxabea, and make some iNaturalist ID’s of Xabea and Oecanthus capensis. I do not have knowledge of Diatrypa and do not intend to study them. I may have suggested some ID’s of Viphyus, Oecanthodes or Stenoecanthus – but usually try to back them up with references or reaching out to experts in those genera.
DEC 22 – Rearing and Plastics Heads Up & Question
One season in a year prior to 2013 I raised Oecanthus pini nymphs, but had to release them in their 5th instar stage because they seemed to be failing to thrive. I also had raised a nymph of O. exclamationis in 2008 which did manage to develop to adulthood, but somehow seemed less robust than he should have been. In both situations, they had been found on a conifer or emerged from conifer stems, and I occasionally witnessed them perched or nibbling on the small plastic water bottle caps I used to hold food or water. At the time I found it interesting, and over those years raised four other species of nymphs, but none nibbled on the plastic and were not conifer dwellers.
I had tried to do some research online, and did manage to find an article focused on terpenoids: Some paper products can mimic juvenile insect hormones. These hormones are necessary for instar molting. Some paper products can have a mixture of terpenoids used in the wood pulp. These compounds were found only in American and Canadian balsam fir and not in European trees.
Insect Juvenile Hormone Mimics: a Structural Basis for Activity | Nature New Biology
This is also interesting: Stage-specific action of juvenile hormone analogs – PMC (nih.gov)
More recent papers discuss using conifer sap to create plastic:
Terpenoids and rosin are a class of important natural molecular biomass containing cycloaliphatic and/or aromatic structures. Particularly, they are also major components of resin, which is an exudate obtained from trees, especially pine trees and conifers. Creating Biodegradable And Renewable Plastics Through Pine Sap – PreScouter – Custom Intelligence from a Global Network of Experts
Another paper: Scientists make plastic from Christmas trees (phys.org)
Another: Pine sap–based plastic: A potential gamechanger for future of sustainable materials (phys.org)
My QUESTION: Is there something here with these papers and my failure to thrive, conifer-dwelling nymphs that is worthy of being studied?? My nymphs failed to thrive after eating plastic well before these papers were published. What was in those plastic caps that made the nymphs think they were consuming necessary hormones — before this ‘new’ process of making plastics from pine sap was discovered?
My WARNING: Do not put plastic in containers being used to rear conifer-dwelling nymphs (Pine, Tamarack, Davis’) or adult females.
DEC 21 – 129-Year Evolution of Counting Chirps
This article was written in 1881 by Margarette W. Brooks. Some comments online suggest she was a victim of minimizing the contributions of females (because credit for Dolbear’s Law came much later), but Brooks comments that she was testing out the theory written by another person ‘recently’ published in the Salem Gazette with the initials W. G. B. [ Margarette W. Brooks, “Influence of temperature on the chirp of the cricket”, Popular Science Monthly 20 (1881), p. 268; citing “W.G.B.”, a writer whom Brooks does not further identify. ] Popular Science Monthly/Volume 20/December 1881/Correspondence – Wikisource, the free online library
Sixteen years later in 1897, Amos Dolbear developed a formula – Dolbear’s Law.
Dolbear, Amos (1897). “The cricket as a thermometer”. The American Naturalist. 31 (371): 970–971. doi:10.1086/276739. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
In 1925, Bentley B. Fulton offered graphs of the chirp rate of the Snowy tree cricket (then called O. niveus).
In 2010, Dr. Thomas J. Walker created the following graph of four chirping species of Oecanthus.
DEC 20 – Islands
There’s a lot more to experience on islands of the world than pristine beaches, palm trees and warm breezes….there are tree crickets!!!
Common Tree Crickets (Genus Oecanthus) in May 2022 by Arwin Neil Baichoo · iNaturalist Mauritius
The last one on this list is very interesting 😉
DEC 19 – Listening in Nature Blog
Check out the Blog:
Monday, December 18, 2023
Crickets and Katydids in the House 2023 entry
At the end of each year, she brings in singing insects to spend their final days indoors.
DEC 18 – Darwin
His mention of Oecanthus [nivalis] niveus (which may actually have been Snowy instead of Narrow-winged) does not match with the topic of differences in color between the sexes. However, back in those days, a number of species were mistakenly paired with another species and could easily be thought to be different colors.
DEC 17 – Microsoft Bing AI Chat – Oecanthinae
😉 – AI does have its positives
DEC 16 – The MHATRE Lab
Publications – MHATRE LAB (natashamhatre.net)
DEC 15 – The SONG Lab
Texas A&M University has undertaken a huge DNA project of Orthoptera that includes tree crickets.
Transcriptomes, fossils and singing insects | Research Communities by Springer Nature
Hojun Song – Department of Entomology (tamu.edu) (Update: Dr. Song is now at Arizona State University: Hojun Song | ASU Search )
DEC 14 – Evolution of Articles
Here are a few articles focused on tree crickets. Note how the style has changed over the years.
Relation of the Chirping of the Tree Cricket (Oecanthus Niveus) to Temperat… – Google Books 1899 (Oecanthus fultoni)
The Habits and Notes of the New England Species of Oecanthus – Google Books 1901
The Habits of the Striped Meadow Cricket (OEcanthus Fasciatus Fitch). – Google Books 1905 (Oecanthus nigricornis)
DEC 13 – Online Entomology Courses
Online Programs and Courses in Entomology | Entomological Society of America (entsoc.org)
Entomology courses – Amateur Entomologists’ Society (AES) (amentsoc.org)
Masters in Entomology | UK Online (uky.edu)
Entomology and Nematology Online Masters Programs | University of Florida (ufl.edu)
Entomology Diploma Course – Centre of Excellence
Bugs 101 | University of Alberta (ualberta.ca)
DEC 12 – Oecanthus californicus pictipennis
Orthoptera of the Upper Rio Grande Valley and the Adjacent Mountains in Northern New Mexico on JSTOR
One of the end results that I am expecting from the DNA project being undertaken by Dr. Hojun Song’s lab at Texas A&M University is for Dr. Morgan Hebard to be added to the list of described Oecanthus species. He presented this entry as a new subspecies, but hopefully it will rise to species level. Note: the info for quadripunctatus and pictipennis are switched.
DEC 11 – Citizen Scientist Articles
Citizen Scientists in Entomology Research
John C. Carlson, Mark S. Fox
American Entomologist, Volume 58, Issue 1, Spring 2012, Page 8, https://doi.org/10.1093/ae/58.1.0008
Published:
01 January 2012
For more articles: Search Results | American Entomologist | Oxford Academic (oup.com)
DEC 10 – Capturing Tree Crickets in Japan
Great video of an enthusiastic tree cricket capturer.
【カンタン】鳴く虫カンタンのカップ採集方法 – YouTube
He has more info here: 鳴く虫研究社 | スズムシ マツムシ キリギリス 通販 (nakumushi.jp)
DEC 9 – Fast Chirper from Brazil
Grilo arborícola – Oecanthus sp. (parte 3) – YouTube
I count ungrouped pulse chirps as: 162 ch / min at a frequency of 3.1 kHz
Close to a species mentioned as Oecanthus sp 1 in a paper here: Vol. 5209 No. 2: 16 Nov. 2022 | Zootaxa (mapress.com) Singing Crickets from Brazil …..but that frequency is 2.8 kHz and each chirp has 10-12 pulses. Your tree cricket has 5-7 pulses per chirp.
Other species that do not match:
O. pallidus – longer bursts of trilling 12 ch/min 2.2 kHz
O. pictus – continuous trilling 35 ppm 3.2 kHz 19C
O. lineolatus – 30 ch/min at 23.4C 3.3 kHz
O. rubromaculatus – 204 ch/min 2.4 kHz at 18.4 C
Oecanthus sp 1 – 162 ch/min 2.8 k Hz at 22 C
Oecanthus sp 2 – 26 ch/min 3.4 k Hz at 22 C
Perhaps an expert will see this (or follow the link to the video) and offer their assessment.
DEC 8 – Singing Oecanthus longicauda in Japan
Beautiful Sound Cricket – Oecanthus longicauda – YouTube
This YouTube video has great views of a singing male Oecanthus longicauda. He has a name and he loves carrots.
Beautiful Sound Cricket – Oecanthus longicauda – YouTube
Here is a spectrogram of his song pattern…which sounds like a rapid chirping to me.
DEC 7 – Tool-making in Australia by Xabeans
Nice to see this behavior in a Xabean in Australia. The description offered with the photos suggested the holes were happened upon, but we know by the shape and size that these were made by a male tree cricket.
BunyipCo: tree crickets https://bunyipco.blogspot.com/search/label/tree%20crickets
DEC 6 – An Amazing Video
The Most Clever Insect on YouTube by Ample Wise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSKrP2Satqk
This is an awesome video! Watch it…you won’t be disappointed!!
DEC 5 – Toms & Otte’s Africa Paper
DEC 4 – Chopard’s 1932 Key to African Species
Published in 2932 – THE AFRICAN SPECIES OF THE GENUS OECANTHUS, SERV.(ORTH. GRYLLIDAE)
DEC 3 – Simpler Times – Willis S. Blatchley
Blatchley often combined his scientific data and descriptions with more poetic writing, such as “I dwell in the flowers” for Oecanthus, and “the first musicians” for Orthoptera.
Note that in 30 years he had encountered only two Neoxabea bipunctata. Hard to say if the numbers were lower back then (late 1800s and early 1900s), if he wasn’t checking trees and vines, or if he just happened to visit in areas with no populations of this species.
Blatchley’s writings can be accessed here: Search Results (biodiversitylibrary.org) https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/search?stype=F&searchTerm=Blatchley%2C+W.+S.#/titles
Professor Blatchley not only wrote scientific papers and described species (not tree crickets), he also wrote books and articles targeted to school children and the general public in order to increase their awareness of the beauty and importance of nature.
– v. 14 (1900-1901) – The Ottawa naturalist – Biodiversity Heritage Library (biodiversitylibrary.org)
DEC 2 – Wisconsin Entomological Society Newsletter
Digital Library | Wisconsin Entomological Society (wisentsoc.org)
DEC 1 – A Story Book from Japan
Although not necessarily a tree cricket, this charming story highlights the songs of crickets. #1 – The insect concert / story and pictures by Sanae … Books K397ins 1958. – Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library
