The prairie mole cricket (Gryllotalpa major Saussure) is a native of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem of the south central United States. The largest of North American crickets, its populations have declined with the reduced availability of suitable grassland habitat. Prairie mole cricket populations were surveyed at The Nature Conservancy's Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma in the spring of 2005. We located 95 acoustic burrows occupied by calling males and recorded the calling songs of 55. We measured 3 morphological characters for 8 of these field-recorded males and characterized each male's calling song for 7 key acoustic variables. Statistically significant relationships were discovered between male body length and 2 song parameters: syllables chirp−1 and dominant frequency.
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1 June 2006
Morphology and calling song characteristics in Gryllotalpa major Saussure (Orthoptera: Gryllotalpidae)
Daniel R. Howard,
Peggy S. M. Hill
Journal of Orthoptera Research
Vol. 15 • No. 1
June 2006
Vol. 15 • No. 1
June 2006
burrow
Calling song
frequency
Gryllotalpidae
morphology
size