Tree crickets hear with a tympanal membrane on their two front fore limbs. Here is a close up of a tree cricket’s ‘ear’. Eyes come in different colors, including green, white, yellow, brown, pink and purple. This eye has a purple color. This is a 3rd instar nymph of Two-spotted tree cricket. You can just barely see the very small wing buds at the proximal end of the abdomen – where it meets the pronotum. These are the swollen wings still inside the sacs of a 5th instar nymph. The wings swell just prior to molting. This will be the final molt for this tree cricket. The veins and corrugations on male tree cricket wings contribute to the projection of their song. If you look carefully at the pattern of the veins of the wings, you can see an amazing likeness of a tree cricket with its wings raised. Nature is so amazing. This is an extreme close up of the portions of the wings that rub against each other to produce the song. This is a view through a microscope of the wing file. This one has 23 teeth. These teeth strike the scraper on the other wings to produce sound. Tree crickets are not good fliers. They open their wings to make long flying leaps. When males sing, their metanotal gland is exposed. Females drink the fluid within this gland during the mating process. Metanotal glands come in different shapes. This is the gland of Oecanthus symesi. Females have a long ovipositor which they use to drill into stems and branches in order to place their eggs. The tips of the ovipositors vary slightly in shape. More anatomy information is available on the glossary page.