David Element
Wildlife
Photography and Digital Video Images
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Grasshoppers and Crickets 11 – Tropical House Crickets
TROPICAL HOUSE CRICKET Gryllodes sigillatus (f)
- An oddity here! This female Tropical House Cricket Gryllodes sigillatus had originated from
a neighbour's herpetarium - where it had been placed
with the intention of providing lunch for a pet chameleon. She managed to
escape with several of her friends (including some House Crickets Acheta domestica) and the colony had
clearly managed to survive outdoors until late September at the time of
writing - probably as a consequence of a (at the time) uncommonly hot and
extended summer. The owner then moved home, so there was no likelihood of
any 'topping up' of the escaped population. The stridulations
of these two species are entirely distinct, so they are easy to separate
by sound despite being very elusive and hard to spot. They are not
particularly willing to stay still in front of a camera either, so
advantage was taken when this one decided to seek temporary refuge in a
crack in the wall. They added a bizarrely European flavour to the warm
summer evenings of 2003 but there was no evidence of either of these
species surviving to the following year. The photograph has been scanned
from a transparency.
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