David Element's Wildlife Web Page Orthopteroids 22

David Element

Wildlife Photography and Digital Video Images

___________________________________________________________ Orthopteroids 22 - Sword-tail Crickets

SWORD-TAIL CRICKET Trigonidium cicindeloides (m)

This rather strange and fast moving beetle-like Sword-tail Cricket or ‘Trig’ Trigonidium cicindeloides was found in a coastal region of Tuscany (Toscana). Normally the photographer would have had a rough idea about the identity of an insect but this one defeated him completely and help was required. Dr. Paul Veenvliet, a Dutch scientist working in Slovenia was contacted and he kindly placed an image of this little cricket on a Dutch wildlife forum Waarneming.nl where it was easily identified by another Dutch scientist Roy Kleukers who had worked with orthopterans in Italy. Paul and Roy kindly checked the identities of some of the other European grasshoppers and crickets on this site and because of this several corrections have now been made. Their expertise is much appreciated. Roy provided a copy of a national distribution map for Italy that demonstrated an almost exclusively coastal distribution for T. cicindeloides (and also the enthusiasm of the Italian recorders). Roy also confirmed that the beetle resemblance was inferred by the German vernacular name of Käfergrille (literally beetle-cricket). Thanks to Paul and Roy for their assistance. On-line reference photographs would suggest that this illustration is of a fully-winged form (presumably the origin of the ‘Sword-tail’ vernacular name) and that many other photographs illustrate a brachypterous form of this species. This is the only member of this genus to be found in Europe.