Two-colored bite insect
| Two-colored bite insect | ||||||||||||
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Male bicolor bite insect ( Bicolorana bicolor ), long-winged form |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Bicolorana bicolor | ||||||||||||
| ( Philippi , 1830) |
The two-colored bite insect ( Bicolorana bicolor , syn .: Metrioptera bicolor ) is a long-feeler insect from the superfamily of the grasshopper (Tettigonioidea).
features
The two-colored bite insect is predominantly green and brown on the back. What is striking about it are very long ankle bones with a characteristic dark herringbone pattern that varies from person to person.
Similar species
Similar species are the Istrian bite insect , the Roesels bite insect and the short-winged bite insect , but the latter always have light-edged pronotum side lobes.
distribution
Their habitat are warm, dry, tall meadows and the fringes of dry forests . The species does not penetrate into shaded areas. It endures more heat and drought and needs less humidity than most other Metrioptera species, so it shows thermophilic habitat choice. Apparently she prefers a certain amount of soil moisture.
The two-colored bite insect is not endangered in Germany, except in Hesse (RL 3) and Bavaria (RL 3). No occurrences are documented in Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg; the cool, humid climate of the Atlantic does not naturally allow occurrence there.
Way of life
The two-colored bite insect feeds on both soft parts of plants (at least they are chewed) and small animals. She herself is preyed on by birds, especially the red backed killer . It is a predominantly vertically oriented species that only jumps horizontally from blade to blade quite well when fleeing. The flight ability of the short-winged form is poor due to the unfavorable wing area-mass relation. The macroptere (long-winged) form is capable of flight and covers five to ten meters on the flight.
Organ of stridulation, song
The locusts examined (30 males, 10 females) come from the Garching Heath north of Munich. Males and females are the same size. The front wings of the males and the females are almost equally wide up to the rear end (picture), sex differences exist in length. In males they are on average 9.90 millimeters long, in females only 6.23 millimeters. The hind wings are short, there are only minor gender-specific differences (mean value for males 2.63 millimeters, for females 2.3 millimeters). The stridulation organ of the males shows differences between left and right (picture). The shrill ridge is more developed on the left fore wing than on the right. Its length on the left measures an average of 1.66 millimeters and has an average of 58.87 shrill teeth, on the right wing the average value for the length of the shrill bar is only 0.88 millimeters, for the number of shrill teeth 31.27. The shrill teeth are elliptical in shape and equipped with powerful tips that are aligned with the base of the wings. On the right wing they are not only less numerous, but also smaller than on the left. The mirror is conspicuously designed on the right, only hinted at on the left (picture). At medium ambient temperatures the singing resembles a "zritt", at high temperatures it lasts for minutes with only short interruptions.
literature
- Heiko Bellmann : Locusts: observe, determine , Naturbuch Verlag 1993, ISBN 3-89440-028-5
- Heiko Bellmann: grasshoppers. The voices of 61 native species. CD, Amp Europe 2004, ISBN 978-3-935329-48-4
- Siegfried Ingrisch, Günther Köhler: The locusts of Central Europe , Westarp Sciences 1998, ISBN 978-3-89432-461-2
- Peter Detzel: Locusts of Baden-Württemberg , Ulmer Verlag Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 978-3-8001-3507-3
- Anna Alfonsa Stark: Investigations on the sound organ of some crickets and grasshopper species, at the same time a contribution to the right-left problem. Zoological Yearbooks, Department of Anatomy and Ontogeny of Animals 77, pp. 9–50, 1958.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bayer. State Office for Environmental Protection (Hrsg.): Red list of endangered jumping horrors (Saltatoria) Bavaria. 2003
- ↑ a b Anna Alfonsa Stark: Investigations on the sound organ of some crickets and grasshopper species, at the same time a contribution to the right-left problem. Zoological Yearbooks, Department of Anatomy and Ontogeny of Animals 77, pp. 9–50, 1958.
- ^ Heiko Bellmann : Locusts: observe, determine , Naturbuch Verlag 1993, ISBN 3-89440-028-5
- ↑ Heiko Bellmann: Locusts. The voices of 61 native species. CD, Amp Europe 2004, ISBN 978-3-935329-48-4
