The Urban Pantheist

The crickets' eye view of the monster.

Handsome trig Phyllopalpus pulchellus

I was torn between the two most-used common names for this animal. The other name "red-headed bush cricket" is an accurate description. But "handsome trig" is hard to beat, and it sounds a bit like an epithet for a prep school boy. The scientific name means "pretty plant-feeler," which is close to the common name I chose. "Trig" is a shortened form of a genus name of a related species in the same subfamily Trigonidiinae (the subfamily is named for the related species). The "leaf-feeler" bit has to do with those crazy black mouthparts--appendages called palps, which it uses to taste the world directly in front of its head. It also constantly waggles its antennae around, building some kind of chemical map of its surroundings with these pairs of sense organs.

This insect sings by stridulating its wings, , the right one of which is black while the other is transparent with a smoky black margin. This must be an adaptation which affects the production of the sound in some way. The singing males have been observed to choose a stage (a perch within a shrub usually) framed by a pair of leaves, which helps to amplify the song.

I had never seen one of these before, but I recognized it from Songs of Insects, which I consulted heavily when researching my podcast episode about crickets and katydids. That book, as well as the online bugguide.net, place this insect in a range that does not include New England. I would be interested to learn if the trig's range is expanding, or if this is an aberrant stray occurrence.



Learn 20 common insect songs!

Fall field cricket Gryllus pennsylvanicus

Field crickets are medium sized flightless orthopterans that live in low foliage and under debris and leaf litter. Their song is the familiar sound of a quiet morning in the suburbs, or an empty theater after the last act bombs. They are omnivores feeding on plants and seeds and detritus, as well as on insect eggs and insects too slow, helpless, or dead to escape from them.

There are two species of field cricket in our area, both identical in appearance and song, but one overwinters as a juvenile and the other survives the winter in the egg stage. The juvenile grows up and sings in spring, while the other becomes a singing adult in fall. Both species live only a single year. Apparently in some parts of the country field cricket populations occasionally explode, with hundreds of thousands of insects suddenly swarming over yards and into buildings. I'd like to see that some day.


The long middle spike coming from the abdomen of this fall field cricket is her ovipositor, which she will use to lay eggs in damp soil. The orange glow is the bucket I put her in to try to get a picture without her hopping away.