Striped Raspy Cricket - Paragryllacris combusta

Family GRYLLACRIDIDAE

This page contains pictures and information about Striped Raspy Crickets that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.

Striped Raspy Crickets are also known as Tree Crickets. Adults are dark brown to pale brown in colour with fully developed wings. They have very long antenna, all legs are spiny. They hide in nest on tree during the day. Their nest is usually two board leaves hold together by silky material. They are well known for their ability to find the way home after foraging distance away.


Body length 50mm

From its sword-like ovipositor , we can tell the cricket in the pictures is a female.

The photos show the cricket feeding on nectar from the flowers of Large Bird-of-Paradise tree in our front yard. We took the pictures at night on OCT 2000. We noticed that the cricket climbed up the same tree at the same time every night. It did the same routine in the next couple of days. Even after we captured it once, put it in jar and watched it for a an hour.



The crickets are nocturnal species and are found wandering around vegetation during the night. This cricket had a handsome face with contrasted Stripe pattern (few years later we found that the pattern is to mimic spider, details discussed at bottom of this page). Notice its maxillas and labium are highly developed and well extended from its mouth.

The Cricket nests in holes in trees and between the leaf-sheaths of plants. We are wondered how they remember the ways to the food source and return to the nest. Recent studies show that they use pheromones to recognise their way home.


Body length 20mm

On a sunny winter day morning (June 2007), we saw this Raspy Cricket nymph walking across the lawn in our backyard. From the same mask marking on its face, we believe it is the Striped Raspy Cricket nymph.



Notice their spiny front legs. This may suggest they are predator of other small insects.

Reference:
1. Insects of Australia, CSIRO, Division of Entomology, Melbourne University Press, 2nd Edition 1991, pp 380.
2. Grasshopper Country - the Abundant Orthopteroid Insects of Australia, D Rentz, UNSW Press, 1996, p63, plate47.
3. Insects of Australia and New Zealand - R. J. Tillyard, Angus & Robertson, Ltd, Sydney, 1926, p95.
4. Studies in Australian Gryllacrididae: Taxonomy, Biology, Ecology and Cytology - Rentz DCF, John B. 1990. Invertebrate Taxonomy 3: 1053-1210.