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Gryllotalpidae
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Unidentified Cricket
  

                                               

Dark Night Mole Cricket - Gryllotalpa monanka

Family GRYLLOTALPIDAE

 
 
wpeE.jpg (36014 bytes) wpe10.jpg (67823 bytes) SCN_0003a.jpg (277693 bytes)
Male, body length 35mm
 
  Click here to hear calling song, 5 sec.
 
This Mole Cricket look similar with the Common Mole Cricket 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. If we follow the sound and come close to them very carefully. We can see them making the sound just at the entrance of their burrows. We see them sometimes come out from their burrows and wandering around in our backyard. We can catch them easily if they come on to the concrete. If they are on the lawn or on the sand, they will quickly dig into the ground and disappear. 
 

Reference:
1. Grasshopper Country - the Abundant Orthopteroid Insects of Australia, D Rentz, UNSW Press, 1996, p152.
2. Gryllotalpa monanka - Australian Insect Common Names, CSIRO, version 1.53 

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Last updated: May 15, 2011.