Popular Science Books on Orthopera Acoustics

This list will be updated as regularly as possible.

	Cricket Radio: Tuning in the Nightsinging Insects
	Bug Music

Ancylecha fenestrata (Fabricius, 1793)

Ancylecha fenestrata adult female

Ancylecha fenestrata is a large bush-cricket (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Phaneropterinae) from Malaysia. It has been reared in Europe for a number of years on Ligustrum spp. (Privet) and Rubus spp. (Bramble). The above picture was the first to reach maturity out of a total of 3 females and 1 male (several nymphs died due to bad moults - often from falling during the moulting process).

The acoustics of this species are relatively poorly known, an audible defensive stridulation is made by both sexes. There are some reports (Scherberich et al, 2013) of the males having a calling song in the ultrasound, although I have not yet been able to confirm this (a signal matching their description that I recorded was later found to be interference on the power supply to the recorder, possibly from fluorescent light fittings).

I have several days and nights worth of recordings of the male, an isolated male and female, and a male and female in the same enclosure to process and hopefully identify a calling song.

Samples of the defensive stridulation will be added to BioAcoustica (Baker et al, 2015) (direct link to Ancylecha fenestrata page). There are already links to several publications on the sound production and hearing of this species.

Ancylecha fenestrata female nymph

Ancylecha fenestrata female nymph. Both nymphs and adults of both sexes regularly sit with both antennae under their bodies in contact with the substrate.

Science Today: An Entomologist's Entomologist

In the News: Rare stick insect to go international to save its species

From the Syndney Morning Herald: Rare stick insect to go international to save its species

Hundreds of precious Lord Howe Island stick insect eggs will be sent overseas as part of a captive breeding program for the critically endangered Australian insect – which until 2001 was thought extinct.

Bred at Melbourne Zoo, 900 of the lentil-sized eggs will travel to zoos in Bristol, Toronto and San Diego, where insurance populations will be established for one of the world's rarest insects.

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In the News: Predatory cockroach from dinosaur era found trapped in amber

From New Scientist: Predatory cockroach from dinosaur era found trapped in amber

This exotic, praying-mantis-like cockroach that lived at the same time as dinosaurs was caught in amber about 100 million years ago. It is part of a new family of extinct predatory cockroaches that hunted at night.

Peter Vršanský from the Geological Institute in Bratislava, Slovakia, and Günter Bechly from the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany, who examined the insect, say its long neck, which allows the head to rotate freely, and unusually long legs, suggest that it actively pursued prey. The fossilised insect, called Manipulator modificaputis, was discovered at a mine in Noije Bum, Myanmar.

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Phyllium from the American Agriculturist

American Agriculturist, June 1887 pg 227

Phasmid infestations reported in American Agriculturist (1887)

While doing some research on phasmids as forest defoliators I discovered these reports from the American Agriculturist on infestations of Diapheromera femorata in 1887.

American Agriculturist, June 1887, pg 219

American Agriculturist, August 1887, pg 302

Source: Internet Archive, American Agriculturist, for the farm, garden and household (1877)

In the News: Hermit Cockroaches: Two New Taxa From China Prefer Woods

From Science 2.0: Hermit Cockroaches: Two New Taxa From China Prefer Woods

Cockroaches are most often though of as infecting human homes but a new species and a new subspecies discovered in China prefer to live a hermit life, drilling logs far away from crowds and houses.

It's more common than we think. Out of around 4,600 species of cockroaches worldwide, only 30 are the cockroaches associated with human habitats that gives the bad fame of these creatures. The representatives of the genus Panesthia, to which the new species and subspecies belong, for example are distinctive for drilling logs and xylophagy (feeding on wood), rather than living in houses and eating rubbish.

The new species, P. guizhouensis, was firstly collected from a rotten wood log near a large pool where it was living undisturbed, far away from cities in Guizhou Province. A colony of more than 60 nymphs and 52 adults, emerged from the log when the wood was split, quickly fleeing away.

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In the News: First steps for Hector the robot stick insect

From phys.org: First steps for Hector the robot stick insect

A research team at Bielefeld University has succeeded in teaching the only robot of its kind in the world how to walk. Its first steps have been recorded in a video. The robot is called Hector, and its construction is modelled on a stick insect. Inspired by the insect, Hector has passive elastic joints and an ultralight exoskeleton. What makes it unique is that it is also equipped with a great number of sensors and it functions according to a biologically inspired decentralized reactive control concept: the Walknet. By 2017, the walking robot will be equipped with additional abilities in a major project at the Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC).

The walking robot has been built by the Biomechatronics research group. In the future, Hector should serve as a platform for biologists and roboticists to test hypotheses about animal locomotion. One major aspect will be the fusion of large amounts of data from sensors so that the robot can walk more autonomously than before. A further key issue will be the optimal coordination of movements by a robot with elastic drives.

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In the News: World’s Second-Longest Insect Discovered in Vietnam

From sci-news.com: World’s Second-Longest Insect Discovered in Vietnam

In the jungles of Vietnam, biologists Dr Joachim Bresseel and Dr Jerome Constant from Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences have discovered two new species and one new subspecies of Phasmatodea, an order of insects whose members are known as stick insects.

The latter, named Phryganistria heusii yentuensis, is the second-longest insect known to date.

The current record-holder is another stick-insect called Phobaeticus chani. It is found on the Indonesian island of Borneo and measures a huge 36 cm in length.

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