Orthoptera is an order of insects that comprises the grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets, including closely related insects, such as the bush crickets or katydids and weta. The order is subdivided into two suborders: Caelifera – grasshoppers, locusts, and close relatives; and Ensifera – crickets and close relatives.
Mole crickets are members of the insect family Gryllotalpidae, in the order Orthoptera. Mole crickets are cylindrical-bodied, fossorial insects about 3–5 cm (1.2–2.0 in) long as adults, with small eyes and shovel-like fore limbs highly developed for burrowing. They are present in many parts of the world and where they have arrived in new regions, may become agricultural pests.
Roesel's bush-cricket, Roeseliana roeselii is a European bush-cricket, named after August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof, a German entomologist.
Gryllotalpa major,also known as the Prairie Mole Cricket, is endemic to the United States and is the largest cricket in North America. Its natural habitat is temperate grassland and it belongs to the family Gryllotalpidae. It is threatened by habitat loss, and is currently only found in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Arkansas. Males of this species produce sounds by rubbing their fore wings together. They sing from special burrows they construct in the prairie soil to attract females for mating, and they can be heard at distances up to 400 m from the burrow. Males aggregate their acoustic burrows in a lek arena and are very sensitive to vibrations carried through the ground. Males communicate with neighboring males through vibrational signals, and the songs they project to flying females are harmonic chirps, rather than the trills produced by most mole crickets.
Gryllotalpa is a genus of insects in the mole cricket family Gryllotalpidae.
Larra bicolor is a parasitoid wasp native to South America. It was introduced into Florida as a biological pest control of invasive mole crickets.
Gryllotalpa orientalis is a species of mole cricket in the family Gryllotalpidae, commonly known as the oriental mole cricket. It is found in much of Asia and Australasia. At one time, this species was misidentified as G. africana and thought to have a widespread distribution in both Africa and Asia, but in the 1980s, G. orientalis was recognised as a separate species. It is a polyphagous pest, damaging crops by gnawing their roots.
Omocestus viridulus, known in the British Isles as the common green grasshopper, is a Palearctic species of grasshopper in the subfamily Gomphocerinae.
The Tridactylidae are a family in the insect order Orthoptera. They are small, mole-cricket-like insects, almost always less than 20 mm (0.79 in) long when mature. Generally they are shiny, dark or black, sometimes variegated or sandy-coloured. They commonly live in short tunnels and are commonly known as pygmy mole crickets, though they are not closely related to the true "mole crickets" (Ensifera), as they are included in the Caelifera suborder.
Scapteriscus is a genus of insects in the family Gryllotalpidae, the mole crickets. Members of the genus are called two-clawed mole crickets. They are native to South America. Some species have arrived in other regions, including parts of North America, where some have become invasive and have become established as pests.
Gryllotalpa africana, also known as the African mole cricket, is a relatively small mole cricket species, native to Africa, but local populations exist in Asia, and southern Europe.
Neoscapteriscus vicinus, commonly known as the tawny mole cricket, is a species of insect in the mole cricket family, Gryllotalpidae. This species is native to South America and also occurs in the Southern United States, where it arrived as a contaminant of ship's ballast around 1900. Colombian insect taxonomist Oscar Cadena-Castañeda studied specimens of the genus which had been called Scapteriscus, and decided that it included two groups; a smaller group and a larger group that he named Neoscapteriscus in 2015. North American mole cricket taxonomists agreed with his decision and altered Orthoptera Species File Online accordingly.
Neoscapteriscus abbreviatus, the short-winged mole cricket, is a species of insect in the mole cricket family, Gryllotalpidae. It is native to South America but has been introduced inadvertently into Florida, in the United States. Unlike other related species, it is unable to fly, nor do the males emit songs in order to attract females.
Gryllotalpa vineae is a species of mole cricket in the family Gryllotalpidae. It is found in southwestern Europe and was first described by the entomologists H. C. Bennet-Clark and Blaine H. Goodposts in 1970 after having realised that it must be a different species from the European mole cricket because of its distinctive song.
The New Zealand mole cricket is a wingless member of the mole cricket family Gryllotalpidae. Endemic to New Zealand, it lives underground and is rarely seen. It is now restricted to parts of the southern North Island.
Neoscapteriscus borellii, the southern mole cricket, is a species of insect in the family Gryllotalpidae.
Gryllotalpa unispina is a species of mole cricket, in the G. gryllotalpa species group, found in Eastern Europe through to Manchuria. No subspecies are listed in the Catalogue of Life.
Gryllotalpa septemdecimchromosomica is a species of mole cricket, in the G. gryllotalpa species group, found in Spain and France: where it may be known as le courtillière Provençale. No subspecies are listed in the Catalogue of Life.
The Gryllotalpoidea are a superfamily of insects that includes the mole crickets and the ant crickets. The type genus is Gryllotalpa.
