Oecanthus fultoni
| Oecanthus fultoni | ||||||||||||
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Male of Oecanthus fultoni |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Oecanthus fultoni | ||||||||||||
| Walker , 1962 |
Oecanthus fultoni is a flower cricket (English "Tree Cricket") and is one of the long-feeler horrors . It occurs almost in the entire area of the USA and is called "Snowy (literally translated as" snow-white ") Tree Cricket" because of its often very light color. Sincethe air temperature can be determined very reliablyfrom the tempo of their singing using Dolbear's law , it is often also referred to as a thermometer cricket. The chirping rate is counted for 13 seconds and then the number 40 is added. This value is pretty much the temperature in degrees Fahrenheit . The species was onlyseparatedfrom Oecanthus niveus in 1962. However, both species have completely different singing among other characteristics.
features
The animals are 15-18 mm long. From another very similar species of the genus Oecanthus can be O. fultoni slightly different if you see from the front of the base of the sensor. There is a black, almost circular to oval spot on the first antenna segment (instead of an elongated spot or two spots). The second antenna element also has only a single oval black spot, which is larger than half the length of the segment. As is common with many flower crickets, the males have, compared to the females, very broad wings with a vein specially designed to amplify the resonance of the song. Singing males can also be differentiated very well based on their species-specific lure song, although the temperature dependency must be taken into account.
distribution and habitat
The species is distributed almost throughout the United States (except Hawaii, Alaska, Florida, and Montana), Mexico, and southern Canada. The males sing on the scrubby undergrowth at the edges of the forest or within less dense forests. In cold spells the animals can be found close to the ground on the trunks of small trees, presumably because it is warmer there.
Trivia
The song of this flower cricket is so well known that it is mixed in with many American films, especially to suggest a quiet summer night in a rural setting. The writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) described the singing of these crickets in The Old Manse as "audible stillness" and wrote in The Canterbury Pilgrims : "If moonlight could be heard, it would sound just like that." If moonlight could be heard, it would be a sound just like this.).
In episode 2 of season 3 of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory with the title The Jiminy Conjecture (German title Die Grillenwette ) Sheldon Cooper and Howard Wolowitz lead a contentious discussion whether a cricket found in the apartment is a thermometer grill ( Oecanthus fultoni ) or a common field cricket, Gryllus assimilis . However, Gryllus assimilis denotes the steppe cricket, which occurs in the United States only in Florida and the extreme south of Texas (mostly Jamaican field cricket), whereas the common field cricket, which does not occur in America, would be Gryllus campestris . The animal shown towards the end of the series is at least not a greenish, slim thermometer cricket, but (as far as recognizable) a brownish steppe cricket, which is never explicitly named in the following. At least the scientific names mentioned below could therefore be correct, but unlike the thermometer cricket, the animal does not occur in California. The Acheta domesticus introduced into California or another of the many species of the genus Gryllus should be considered here.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Walker TJ (1966): Annotated Checklist of Oecanthinae (Orthoptera: Gryllidae) of the World. The Florida Entomologist 49 (4): 265-277. http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/walker/fe49p265.pdf
- ^ Elliott L & Hershberger W: The songs of insects. Houghton Mifflin: Boston 2007. ISBN 0-618-66397-5 .
- ^ David B. Weissman, DCF Rentz, Richard D. Alexander, Werner Loher (1980): Field Crickets (Gryllus and Acheta) of California and Baja California, Mexico (Orthoptera: Gryllidae: Gryllinae) . Transactions of the American Entomological Society 106 (3), pp. 327-356. pdf on www.jstor.org
literature
- Elliott L & Hershberger W: The songs of insects . Houghton Mifflin: Boston 2007, ISBN 0-618-66397-5 . (with CD)
