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- Mole Crickets have characteristic digging forelegs. Males produce songs and build burrows to amplify
their love song. Their antennae are shorter than body. When dug up, they do not leap away like other
burrow-inhabiting insects but dig their way back underground with powerful strokes of the forelegs. The dirt is simply forced
aside. Most of them have developed wings and are capable fliers.
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- Most species are attached to the window light. Both female and male
stridulate. Male makes horn-shaped entrance chamber of the burrow to
increase the sound output. They sing for very restricted periods of time.
They only sing in a wet evening, usually after a thunder shower or triggered
by the watering of lawns. However, they stop singing after dark.
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- Common Mole Cricket
 - Gryllotalpa pluvialis, female and male, body length 50mm
- Common Mole Crickets are dark brown in colour with shiny thorax. Although their
wings look small compare to their body, sometimes we find them flying around
during mid-summer. Notice their strong shovel-like forelegs for digging burrows. They cannot
be seen easily but we always hear the males singing loudly with continuous
trilling from burrows during a wet summer dusk. They only sing for a short periods of
time. They start singing when the sky turn dark and end singing when the sky
is dark completely, for about 30 minutes. They do not sing when the
soil is dry. The shape of their burrow is
believed to help amplify the song. It is difficult to locate them by their songs
even if you are within a meter from them. If you come a bit closer, they
will stop singing. We have more information about Mole Cricket, please click on here.
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Dark Night Mole Cricket
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- Gryllotalpa monanka, male, body length 35mm
- This Mole Cricket look similar with the Common Mole Cricket above except
smaller in size. Their bodies are dull brown in colour. Their calling song is
a quite different. We can hear them everywhere in a hot wet summer evening.
The start calling after dark for half an hour. More information can be found
in this details page.
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- Reference:
- 1. Insects
of Australia, CSIRO, Division of Entomology, Melbourne University
Press, 2nd Edition 1991, p386.
- 2. Grasshopper
Country - the Abundant Orthopteroid Insects of Australia, D Rentz,
UNSW Press, 1996, p150.
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