Waterwereld
great green bush-cricket
This is a large predatory cricket that lives in bushes hunting for insects. It reaches more then 4 cm in length, with males generally being smaller than the females. The great green bush-cricket is bright coloured green.
This big insect belongs to the family of crickets with long antennae, a large ovipositor and the males have a stridulating organ at the base of the wings.
living in the evening
This large insect avoids sunshine: Birds are its biggest enemy. The great green bush-cricket is activ during the evening. The males can be found easely, they are noisy in the afternoon on sunny days.
biting of the great green bush-cricket
The Great green bush-cricket has strong jaws, and is able to bite painfully.
distribution of the great green cricket
The great green bush-cricket can be found in all Europe as well as North Africa and the Middle East and in Central Asia, for example in Mongolia.
stridulation of the great green bush-cricket
This is a noisy insect that makes a loud sound with little variation. It has sudden stops, at irregular intervals. Only the males begin to sing in the afternoon. Doing so, they usually sit head down, somewhere high in a tree. This stradulation attracts the females.
The great green bush-cricket is the largest of the crickets who are native in Europe and Asia. This cricket is not found in grasland but in bushes and trees, hunting for other insects. Here it has captured a marble white butterfly, and is tearing of the wings before eating it. This a female as denoted by the swordlike termination of the body. The male is shown above. The antennae are very long, which place this species among the group of crickets: A characteristic that distinguishes crickets from locusts are the long antennae that start at the head and grow back, reaching almost the length of the body, as opposed to locusts that have short antennae.
An illustration made by Theo Carerras.
Crickets of Europe and Central Asia.
1 bradyporus multituberculatus
2 striped bush-cricket or Leptophyes albovittata
3 short winged conehead or Conocephalus dorsalis
4 Lily Bush-Cricket or Tylopsis lilifolia
5 great green cricket or Tettigonia viridissima
6 Predatory Bush Cricket, Spiked Magician or saga pedo
7 Singing cricket or Tettigonia cantans
8 Tettigonia caudata
9 Wartbiter or Decticus verrucivorus
10 Saddle-back cricket or Ephippigera ephigger
stridulation
Stridulation is the act of producing sound by rubbing together certain body parts.
great capricorn
burying beetle
great green cricket
tarantula