What do grasshoppers store under their wings? The singing grasshopper - he was green...

Name

Song grasshopper

Synonyms and names in other languages

Heupferd (German).

Classification

Type/Department: Arthropoda (Arthropods)

Subtype/Subdivision: Tracheata (Tracheata, or tracheal breathing (parous)

Superclass: Hexapoda (Six-legged) Class: Insecta (Insects)

Squad/Order: Orthoptera (Orthoptera)

Suborder/Suborder: Ensifera (Longwhiskered Orthoptera)

Superfamily: Tettigonioidea

Family: Tettigoniidae (True grasshoppers)

Genus: Tettigonia (Tettigonia)

View: Tettigonia cantans (Grasshopper)

Widely distributed, lives in Europe and the European part of Russia, in North Africa and in the Middle East. It is also found in Siberia and the Far East.

They live mainly in meadows, clearings, and forest edges. They prefer to sit on the tops of grasses, are found on nettles, and can climb trees and shrubs.

Appearance

Body length 2.5 - 3 cm.

Color bright green.

The elytra are short and wide.

Sexual dimorphism pronounced, females have a long ovipositor.

Feeding

Grasshoppers are predatory insects; in captivity, their diet should consist of 90% insects - live insects such as grasshoppers, crickets, and small cockroaches are suitable. 10% of the diet can be plant foods - lettuce, clover and dandelion foliage, raspberry foliage and cereals are also suitable. Cereals can also be sprouted in hydroponics in winter.

Instead of a drinking bowl, it is better to offer hydrogel to insects.

Breeding

Grasshoppers are dioecious insects with incomplete metamorphosis, that is, in their development they bypass the pupal stage. After mating, the female lays eggs in a container with moist soil (peat or coconut substrate is also suitable), reproduction in grasshoppers is seasonal, so the container with the substrate is kept in the terrarium until August, and then until February it is kept in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator, by spring, after When the eggs are moved into a warm place, they begin to develop and larvae emerge from the eggs. It is better to keep them in spacious terrariums with a very fine mesh for ventilation. Branches are important for decoration; when sitting on them, grasshoppers molt well and correctly; without them, molting disturbances are possible. The branches also increase the area of the terrarium and reduce the likelihood of cannibalism. Young grasshoppers are fed with large insects and dandelion leaves and flowers; you can also give other greens.

Temperature 23 - 25 degrees.

Humidity air 50 - 60%.

Lifespan imago is about 6 months old.

Content complexity

Males sing loudly.

Short lifespan.

Grasshoppers are grasshoppers. It is a superfamily of the order Orthoptera. It has sub-orders. Grasshoppers are classified as long-whiskered. It contains one family of the same name. There used to be more, but the other long-whiskers became extinct.

However, the number of grasshoppers closes the “gaps”. More than 7 thousand species are known. They are divided into genders. Let's look at examples.

Ball-headed grasshoppers

Otherwise called fat people, because they have a fleshy, wide body. The head of insects, as the name implies, is spherical. Its antennae are set below the eyes. Ballheads also have shortened elytra. The hearing organs are located on the front legs. There are visible cracks there. These are the ears.

Sevchuk Servilya

This is a medium-sized grasshopper. The two-centimeter body of the insect is dense, wide, and looks short. Painted brown. The flattened pronotum has yellow markings.

The lateral carinae of Serville are pronounced. By the way, the insect was named after an entomologist from France. Guyom Odinet-Servile devoted his life to the study of Orthoptera.

Sevchuk servilla received its name in honor of the French entomologist

Fat guy

European species, on the verge of extinction, included in species of large grasshoppers. Males of the species are 8 cm long. The length of females is 6 centimeters.

Names of grasshoppers often due to their appearance. A fat man, for example, looks plump, even fat. Due to this, the visually black-brown body of the insect appears shorter. Volume is also added by sharp keels on the sides of the grasshopper's pronotum.

Fat grasshopper

Greenhouse grasshoppers

They are hunchbacked and stocky. The body of greenhouse grasshoppers is shortened, but females have a long ovipositor. Representatives of the genus are also distinguished by long legs and mustaches. The latter reach 8 centimeters.

Chinese greenhouse grasshopper

A little less than 2 centimeters in length. The shortened body surrounded by long, thin legs makes the insect look like a spider.

The Chinese grasshopper is painted brown. Present dark spots. They, like the rest of the body, are covered with short, silky hairs. The insect sheds them, along with its chitinous shell, about 10 times during its life. This is a record for grasshoppers.

Far Eastern grasshopper

Included in species of grasshoppers in Russia. The insect is otherwise called a cave insect, since it settles not only in greenhouses, but also in karst cavities rocks.

The Far Eastern grasshopper is medium-sized, brown-gray in color. Insect leads night look life. This distinguishes the species from most grasshoppers.

Dybki

There is one species in the genus. In Russia, its representatives are the largest grasshoppers. The hindquarters are green and have light stripes on the sides. The elongated body reaches a length of 15 centimeters.

Steppe rack

She's a predator. Among grasshoppers there are also herbivores. Predation does not help the steppe to survive. The species is considered endangered.

Steppe bucks have no males. Females use partonogenesis. Eggs are laid and develop without fertilization. Other grasshoppers are not capable of this.

The steppe racket is listed in the Red Book of Insects

Field grasshoppers

They have a laterally compressed body with a spindle-shaped abdomen slightly compressed at the top. Field grasshoppers are also lobed and large-headed, often lack simple eyes and have tightly compressed lips. The jaws of insects of the group are well developed.

Green grasshopper

Cannot be larger than 7 centimeters in length. The insect is painted green. The color on the wings is especially rich. There are 2 pairs of them. This is a feature of all grasshoppers. They use the first narrow pair of wings to protect the body when at rest and when jumping. The upper wings are wide and are used for flight.

On the wings of a green grasshopper there may be brown along the edge. Large eyes stand out on the insect's muzzle. They are faceted, that is, they are held on the head by a ring of cuticle - a tough but flexible tissue.

Eat subspecies of green grasshoppers. They all hide in the crown of bushes and trees. Therefore, insects do not jump out from under people’s feet. Accordingly, meetings with representatives of the group are rare.

song grasshopper

This is a mini copy of a green grasshopper. The songbird does not grow more than 3.5 centimeters. Another 3 may be on the ovipositor.

The wings of the singing grasshopper end level with the abdomen. Representatives of the green species have wings that protrude significantly.

Gray grasshopper

Grows up to 4 centimeters in length. Appearance of a grasshopper matches the name. The abundance of brown spots on a green background makes the insect gray when viewed from a distance. Gray grasshoppers are easy to see. They live in field and steppe grasses, easily tolerating the heat.

Due to their prevalence and large size, gray grasshoppers are confused with locusts, which belong to the short antennae suborder. In its name lies the difference between insects.

The antennae of the gray grasshopper are often longer than its body. Locusts have short whiskers. The mechanism of chirping also differs. makes sounds by rubbing its paws together. The grasshopper arches its elytra.

Gray one of the most common types of grasshoppers

Long-nosed grasshopper

Represents the fauna of Europe. The length of the insect does not exceed 6.3 centimeters. The color of the grasshopper is brown-green.

The long-nosed insect is named because of the elongated front part of the muzzle. The grasshopper appears to be equipped with a proboscis.

Grasshopper-leaf

In Latin it is called Elimaea Poaefolia. Among field grasshoppers it has the longest body. It is narrow and green. This allows you to blend in with the blades of grass on which the grasshopper sits.

The leaf grasshopper lives in the Malay Archipelago.

Giant weta

Endemic species, found only in New Zealand. The weta weighs about 70 grams, that is, 2 times more than a sparrow. The length of a well-fed grasshopper reaches 15 centimeters. The rest of the appearance is unremarkable. The insect is colored in beige-brown tones.

Legs of a giant weta medium length, the eyes are of medium size, and the mustache is of mediocre length in comparison with the size of the body.

The gigantism of New Zealand grasshoppers is due to the absence of small mammals. For lack of enemies, the Wets almost reached their size. However, in the 20th century, mammals were introduced to the fields of Zealandia. Because of this, the number of giant grasshoppers is declining.

Grasshopper giant weta

Flightless grasshoppers

Some grasshoppers lack wings. As a rule, these are inhabitants of fields and rocky embankments. Grasshoppers that climb trees retain their wings. However, there are species with spines on their paws. The needles, like spurs, dig into the stems, fixing insects.

Various colored grasshopper

The name in Latin is opean varicolor. The grasshopper's body is colored white, red and blue. There is an orange-black subspecies. However, this is not the only interesting thing about the grasshopper. The insect lacks wings.

The segmented antennae of opean varicolor are powerful, pointed at the ends, and straight. The hind legs are also powerful. The insect, like all grasshoppers, has 3 pairs of limbs. The species is found in Colombia.

Mormon Grasshopper

A large representative of long antennae, stretches 8 centimeters. Almost half of them in females can occur in the ovipositor.

Mormons are wingless and herbivorous. As a rule, insects settle among legumes and wormwood. Geographically, Mormon grasshoppers gravitate toward the western regions of the North.

Macroxiphus

This grasshopper mimics, that is, takes on the appearance of another creature. We're talking about an ant. By taking on its forms, macroxiphus reduces the number of potential enemies.

The grasshopper in macroxiphus is distinguished by its long hind legs and elongated antennae. Otherwise, the insects are similar to large black ones.

Exotic grasshoppers

Eat types of grasshoppers hardly recognized as such. The point is unusual forms, colors. Non-standard grasshoppers usually live in the tropics.

Peruvian grasshopper

Opened in 2006 in the mountains of Guyana. The grasshopper imitates the color of a fallen leaf. Externally, the insect also resembles it. The outer side of the folded wings is dotted with a grid pattern. It repeats the capillary pattern on dried greenery.

In order to resemble a fox in shape, the grasshopper folds its wings, covering the sides and a large space above the back.

The underside of the wings of the Peruvian grasshopper is colored like a butterfly eye. She chose this design to scare away predators. Seeing “eyes” on the wings of an insect, they mistake it for a bird or other animal. The Peruvian grasshopper uses the same trick. It also bounces characteristically to resemble the head of a large bird.

The Peruvian grasshopper opens its wings and looks like a butterfly.

Grasshopper rhinoceros

It also resembles a leaf, but green. The color is juicy, closer to light green. The insect's antennae are line-like threads. They are barely noticeable, translucent, significantly longer than body.

The name of the insect is associated with the presence of a horn-like structure on its head. It is also green, attached to the back of the head, like a leaf stalk.

Spiny Devil

Considering types of grasshoppers in the photo, it's hard not to fix your eyes on the devil. It is emerald in color and covered with triangular needles. They are located all over the body.

The length of the devilish grasshopper does not exceed 7 centimeters, although it is a tropical inhabitant. However, the sharp needles and the insect's manner of waving its limbs in front of its enemies scare away the latter. The devil does this in the forests of the Amazon basin.

Spiny devil grasshopper

Exotic grasshoppers are also found among ordinary ones. Here it is no longer a matter of species, but of genetic anomalies. In the world of grasshoppers, erythrism occurs. This is the absence of pigment. Erythritated grasshoppers resemble albinos, but not the former ones. Pink coloring occurs in one individual out of 500. Erythrism in grasshoppers was discovered in 1987.

Finally, we note that in the eyes of ordinary people, grasshoppers are not only true representatives of the suborder, but also crickets and fillies. The latter have shorter antennae and stockier bodies. Crickets have a spherical head and a flat and short body.

Singing grasshoppers

Grasshoppers, unfortunately, are often confused by names, songs and appearance with locusts and even crickets. Often in fiction, in the description of the picture summer day, you meet these jumpers and chirpers, but, alas, also “in a confused form.” So first, let's figure out who is who: a nature lover and future naturalist simply needs to know this.

Grasshoppers are mostly large insects, with very long (often longer than the body) thin antennae, slender, beautiful physique, only some wingless species are thick. Females have a strong “saber” at the back - the ovipositor. Males chirp with their wings, sometimes greatly shortened. They lead a secretive lifestyle, camouflaging themselves well in thickets, and are rarely seen by people, although the long, sonorous trills of many species can be heard hundreds of meters away. Some grasshoppers like to play music during the day, others - in the evening.

Filies, or locusts, are often medium-sized, their antennae are much shorter than their bodies, and their bodies are stocky. Females do not have “sabers”. The sounds are made with a serrated hind leg: it is rubbed against the edge of the wing, resulting in a quiet intermittent chirping with a hissing timbre. They “play the violin” only during the day. Frightened, they jump out from under their feet, not trying to hide after the jump.

Both fillies and grasshoppers have a horse-like head from the side, and their wings fold up like a very steep roof.

Crickets: the head is almost like a ball, the wings lie flat on the back, the body is mostly short and dense. The whiskers are long, like those of grasshoppers, the musical apparatus is in the same place as that of grasshoppers - on the wings. Crickets are even more secretive and generally avoid showing themselves to people, although some species live near humans. Cricket songs - evening and night serenades - vary in sound, depending on the type, but always have a pure tone.

All of the listed musicians have jumping hind legs and belong to the order of Orthoptera insects. There are singers among other orders of six-legged animals. Cicadas are especially famous. Their sound organ is located at the bottom of the body, the wings are completely transparent, and they feed not with the help of mandibles, like Orthoptera, but with a proboscis, which they use to pierce the plant. Cicadas belong to the order Proboscis. But about them some other time.

Now let’s return to the entomological reserve, and the story will only be about singing grasshoppers.

Grasshoppers - how can I say this? - greatly enriched our life and work. Especially starting from mid-summer. The sonorous trills of grasshoppers rushed from tall birches, then from thick wheat. Without them, the reserve would probably be very quiet and boring. After all, complete silence, if you “listen” to it for a long time, has a depressing effect, and a constantly switched on transistor will never replace natural sounds - the singing of birds, the noise of leaves, the chirping of insects.

The musicians distributed their orchestras over time as follows. During the day, the tall grasses and crops were flooded with heat lovers variegated (another name for them is gray) grasshoppers. There were a lot of them - not duets or quartets, but entire ensembles. The hot summer air sometimes literally rang over the reserve. In the evening, when the sun set, the motley ones fell silent, and in the high crowns of the trees the solo songs of green grasshoppers began to be heard, different from the trills of the motley ones. longer duration sound and metallic-ringing timbre.

In the evening silence, the songs of green grasshoppers echoed far around and fell silent long after midnight. You return to the reserve from Isilkul on foot late in the evening - it’s dark all around, you’re walking along winding paths, and your soul is a little anxious, as it probably should be before nightfall if a person is in the forest. Yes, and tired - after all, and there are twelve or thirteen kilometers behind. But then you hear: there, in the darkness, behind the distant pegs, tireless singers - green grasshoppers - are ringing and singing. This is a kind of “sound beacon” of the reserve, preventing you from getting lost and foreshadowing an imminent vacation, home comfort a field laboratory with hot tea, a kerosene lamp on the table and a bouquet of wildflowers next to it, opposite the blackening night window, and if the guys are not yet asleep, then stories about all sorts of extraordinary stories, especially romantic ones accompanied by the clear grasshopper trills...

Two colorful grasshoppers lived in our cage hanging outside the house. The hermits began to chatter on the very first day of captivity and, apparently, were not very bothered by the relative captivity. These grasshoppers have become completely tame. They ate both bread and pieces of meat with appetite. You open the door of the cage, offer a treat in your palm - the motley singer stops his song, moves his long mustache, crawls onto your palm and snacks right on it. This story was even filmed for a film about the Bumblebee Hills reserve, produced by the Omsk television studio: a huge motley grasshopper treats himself to a piece of bread in my palm.

Before that, for many years I kept grasshoppers at home in small jars covered with mesh and equipped inside as a “piece of nature.” The battery of these cans stood on the kitchen window (their chattering in the room made it difficult to work), the songs of this ensemble could be heard even in the next block. One grasshopper begins to chirp, a second one immediately joins it, the rest follow - the grasshopper rings, and the grasshopper orchestra fills the entire street.

And once, many years ago, Seryozha and I caught about a dozen green and colorful grasshoppers and in the evening, from the balcony, we threw them down onto the lawn. For several days, to the surprise of our neighbors, our apartment town house seemed to have moved into a field: steppe and forest musicians were singing nearby, day and night “introducing” numerous city residents to nature. A week later, their voices began to be heard from afar: the “orchestra” slowly spread out and scattered into different sides, and some of its participants settled in the trees and lawns of not only our street, but also the neighboring one.

And catching grasshoppers is oh so difficult: they hear and see perfectly. Only when the musician is rapturously chirping can you take a few quick but quiet steps towards him - but so that he in no case notices you. Suddenly the song stopped, and you didn’t have time to lower your other leg - so stand on one and wait until he starts singing again. The closer, the more careful: if he hears you or sees you, he will fall like a stone into the grass - and remember what his name was: there, below, a frightened but cunning grasshopper will imperceptibly make a long, fast dash along the ground under the grasses.

But even if you sneak up very close to a music-playing insect and hear it chirping about one and a half meters away, it is very difficult to see it. Firstly, because you start, looking for him with your eyes, moving your head from side to side, and the grasshopper will notice you first and scurry down. Secondly, because it is, as a rule, perfectly camouflaged to match the color of the plants on which it sits. And you need to have a lot of experience to be able to see only one thing among the lush vegetation, flickering stems, ears of corn and twigs: the slightly fluttering wings of an inconspicuous singer, even though singing grasshoppers are very large: variegated ones - up to five centimeters (without whiskers), and green ones are even larger.

But that's not all. You need to be able to quietly and imperceptibly bring the net, and hit it in such a way that the insect, which instantly reacts and is already falling down, ends up in the net. And if one or two stems are in the way of the net, and the grasshopper is behind them, then the carefully and long-prepared strike will be unsuccessful - the grasshopper will certainly escape...

I allowed my children, students of Omsk and Novosibirsk universities, to “test catch” grasshoppers in neighboring fields: such a hunt was very exciting. But the prisoners were soon released. After all, motley and green grasshoppers do not cause harm to wheat, feeding there mainly on insects, as we have seen more than once. After all, this is how important it is to distinguish insects from each other! It may happen that an inattentive agronomist, who does not know agricultural entomology very well, will hear the chirping of many insects rushing from a wheat field, and may think that the field is swarming with locusts, or even see one of the musicians - a large “locust”. It could also come down to pesticides. It is not grasshoppers that harm cultivated cereals, but locusts (grasshoppers); Massive locust raids, when their clouds covered the sun and doomed entire provinces to famine, have long been a thing of the past in our country: entomologists vigilantly monitor the development of locust juveniles and destroy these foci long before the locusts “take wing.” And in Western Siberia There are currently no pests among Orthoptera.

The ban on catching and destroying singing grasshoppers in and around the reserve was violated by only one “freelance” member of the expedition - the kitten Ivashka, our favorite. Actually, you shouldn't take this cat into reserved place, but my little daughter Olya begged me, whom I increasingly brought with me to the field house (that summer, Seryozha, having graduated from school, was preparing to go to college and rarely ventured out to the reserve). The students unanimously supported Olya: if there is a transistor and a guitar in the house, then why would a little gray kitten interfere? So Ivashka found himself both in the lap of nature and close to people. He slept in a house, at the feet of one of us, but he learned forest life on his own, so although he grew up in complete friendship with people, he became of some kind of not very homely disposition, a little wild.

During the first weeks, Ivashka hobbled around the “household patch” with the uneven gait of a cat baby, but was afraid to walk in the grass: he got lost in them and meowed desperately, calling us for help. And then he got used to it and began to wander quite far: we were no longer afraid that he would get lost. There, in the grassy jungle, with its diverse living creatures, Ivashka became addicted to hunting... grasshoppers. He will drag a crippled musician home, tinker with him, and then eat him. At first he got hit mercilessly: he was violating the reserve regime, he was such a poacher! But the kitten did not want to understand why he was being attacked, and continued to crunch on more and more grasshoppers brought into our home.

One fine day we began to pass judgment on a slow-witted four-legged poacher, that is, to decide whether to send him back to the city or leave him here. The votes were divided like this: two were in favor of evicting him to the city, three were in favor of leaving him during the expedition. Before voting, it was decided not to take pity and all sorts of fun into account, but only discuss business qualities growing cat.

Our Ivashka got the majority of votes, that's why. At night we were pestered by scoops - gray moths, slippery and nimble, for some reason crowding into the house in incredible numbers. Snooping around the corners, crawling under the wallpaper that covered the room, they rustled loudly, preventing sleep; flew into the light kerosene lamp, rushing around the room, fell inside the lamp glass and into bowls of food. We are terribly fed up with scoops. But Ivashka learned to catch these “mouse-like” insects and ate dozens of them, providing us with peace.

In addition, some rodents, perhaps ordinary house mice, began to visit the house (several decades ago there was the village of Sychevka, demolished due to the consolidation of farms, and the descendants of Sychevka house mice could have survived). Ivashka managed to scare these tailed brethren away from the field laboratory. And most likely, the mice themselves got scared of the kitten and ran away from the house.

That summer there were so many grasshoppers in and around the reserve that we decided to turn a blind eye to Ivashkino poaching. And in the fall, Volodya and Sasha, who had grown up considerably, took the cat to the Novosibirsk Academic Town - to the university dormitory. But, as they later said, the gray one often ran into the forest, fortunately the forest was very close there...

And it is still a mystery to us: how little Ivashka tracked down and accurately grabbed the cautious and timid insects.

But let’s return to the grasshoppers themselves and consider the “chirping” in more detail. To do this, arm yourself with a magnifying glass and spread your wings to the side. It is immediately obvious: the front wings - right and left - are not the same. We are accustomed to the fact that insects (like many other animals) are strictly symmetrical. The wing of a dragonfly is dotted with a thin and complex network of veins, and it does not seem surprising to us how nature manages to “translate” this pattern from one side to the other millions of times with jeweler precision: fold the wings of a dragonfly, look at them with a magnifying glass and make sure they are complete and flawless. their symmetry.

And suddenly there is such a difference: one wing of the grasshopper at the base is dark, dense, and on the other wing in the same place there is a round window covered with a completely transparent film. But this is not a defect, not a deformity, not a mistake of nature, but a peculiar sound apparatus of a grasshopper. Look more closely: at the opaque base of the left wing (always lying on top) there is a thickened transverse vein, which lies just above the window (“mirror”) of the right wing. The mirror has a very thick, high frame. When the slightly raised fore wings move, a thick vein of the left wing, serrated below, rubs against this frame, producing a sound; it is reinforced by a transparent film-membrane stretched tightly over the frame of the right wing.

That's the whole seemingly simple design of the grass jungle singer's musical apparatus.

It remains to add that the “bow” is wide in the middle and very narrow at the ends, but the distances between the teeth are strictly the same along its entire length. In total, I counted 85 such teeth on the motley grasshopper (using a microscope, of course). And one more important circumstance: The wings of females of all types of grasshoppers are strictly symmetrical, and there is not even a hint of a musical apparatus on them. Blacksmith ensembles perform only with male members.

GRASSHOPPERS Morals of grasshoppers Mid-July. The school holidays began, but the hot days came earlier than they were supposed to according to the calendar: the sweltering heat had been standing for a long time. This evening, July 14, the village celebrates a national holiday - the day of the storming of the Bastille, that gloomy prison.

From the author's book

Long-whiskered orthoptera - grasshoppers, crickets, mole crickets. In sunny summer day they are everywhere, wherever we go - in the garden, in the field, in the meadow, on the edge of the forest or clearing. They jump from under their feet - “a restless people, joyfully singing and jumping,” Max Bayer said about the grasshoppers. "Songs"

In gardens, the singing grasshopper prefers bushes and trees, skillfully camouflaging itself in their green foliage. The green elytra of the grasshopper have veining very similar to the veining of a leaf, so it is difficult to notice it sitting motionless.

The song grasshopper is a fairly large grasshopper: its body length reaches 28 millimeters. Slim, beautiful physique. The head from the side looks like a horse's, and the wings fold like a very steep roof. Body green. The elytra extend slightly beyond the knees of the hind legs. The insect has very long thin whiskers, they are longer than the body.

This difference is easiest to notice in females: the ovipositor, up to 3 centimeters long, is almost completely hidden by the elytra of the female green grasshopper and protrudes far from under the elytra of the female song grasshopper.

Only males chirp. The chirping sound is made to attract females. In order to see the grasshopper’s “whispering sound,” you need to spread its wings to the side.

It’s immediately obvious: the front fenders, right and left, are not the same. One grasshopper wing at the base is dark and dense, and on the other wing in the same place there is a round window covered with a completely transparent film. But this is not a defect, not a deformity, not a mistake of nature, but a peculiar sound apparatus of a grasshopper.

At the opaque base of the left wing, which always lies on top, there is a thickened transverse vein, which lies just above the window of the right wing. The window (“mirror”) has a very thick, high frame.

When the slightly raised front wings move, a thick vein of the left wing, jagged underneath, rubs against this frame, producing a sound. The sound is amplified by a transparent membrane film stretched tightly over the frame of the right wing.

The “bow” is wide in the middle and very narrow towards the ends, but the distances between the teeth are strictly the same along its entire length. That's the whole simple design of the grass jungle singer's musical apparatus.

The wings of female song grasshoppers are strictly symmetrical, and there is not even a hint of a musical apparatus on them. Blacksmith ensembles perform only with male members. Their singing is a call for females to mate. And in order for the song to spread as far as possible, males climb higher on bushes or trees.

A female grasshopper can hear such a call from a distance of about a kilometer. In grasshoppers, the hearing organs are located on the front legs, at the base of the lower leg. Outwardly, they are hardly noticeable - they are small oblong holes covered with a membrane. Thanks to this arrangement of the hearing organs, the female very accurately determines the location of the male by sound.

Mating lasts about 45 minutes. After a quarter of an hour, the male begins to chirp again. The female lays eggs one at a time into the ground through a saber-shaped ovipositor, placing them so closely that they are glued together in groups of two, three or four. The number of eggs laid can range from 70 to 100.

The eggs lie in the soil until spring, when the larvae begin to hatch. Larvae differ from adults only in size and underdeveloped elytra. Adult insects appear from mid-July and are active until late autumn. Activity is mainly in the evening and at night, but in the fall, as the temperature drops, grasshoppers sing during the day.

Song grasshoppers feed on small insects - flies, butterflies and other terrestrial invertebrates. They also eat plant foods: cereals and leaves.

Recently we looked in detail at the gray grasshopper (see the entry A grasshopper was sitting in the grass... it was gray...), but today the most grasshopper of all grasshoppers is song grasshopper(lat. Tettigonia cantans). He really is sitting in the grass, he really is green, like a cucumber, but otherwise the children's song tells a lie. Especially about “I didn’t touch the booger, and I was friends with the flies.” The song grasshopper has an omnivorous diet and an excellent appetite. He happily eats everyone he comes across. small insects: flies, butterflies, other small invertebrates. Look at his powerful jaws - with them he can even bite through human skin. By the way, the photo shows a female, this can be understood by the large ovipositor at the end of the body, popularly called a “saber”. I hasten to debunk one of the children's horror stories: with this saber, a grasshopper is not capable of causing any damage to a person, cutting skin, for example; That's why he has jaws. The saber is needed only to lay eggs in the ground. Male grasshoppers do not have such a saber. But they can chirp, but use only their wings for this. And finally, how to distinguish the song grasshopper from the slightly similar in appearance (same green color) green grasshopper (lat. Tettigonia viridissima): the wings of the song grasshopper extend slightly beyond the line of the hind legs, slightly extending onto the saber of females. The green grasshopper has much longer wings - almost to the end of the saber.

Song grasshopper(lat. Tettigonia cantans) - a species of insects from the family True grasshoppers of the order Orthoptera. The body length excluding wings is up to 28 mm, the length of the ovipositor in females is 22-31 mm. Both pairs of wings are well developed. The wings extend slightly beyond the shins of the hind legs. The ovipositor in females is developed, strongly protruding beyond the tips of the wings. The main body color is green. The larvae resemble adults, but with underdeveloped wings.

The song grasshopper (Tettigonia cantas) lives everywhere in Europe, it does not go only to the north, but in Asia it penetrates east to Primorye. The song grasshopper is found in the forest zone, on the edges of the forest, and in meadows. In deserts, it gravitates towards river valleys and the edges of tugai forests. In Central Asia it penetrates high into the mountains, adhering to gorges with lush grassy vegetation. In gardens, the singing grasshopper prefers bushes and trees, skillfully camouflaging itself in their green foliage. The green elytra of the grasshopper have veining very similar to the veining of a leaf, so it is difficult to notice it sitting motionless.

The song grasshopper is a fairly large grasshopper: its body length reaches 28 millimeters. Slim, beautiful physique. The head from the side looks like a horse's, and the wings fold like a very steep roof. The body is green. The elytra extend slightly beyond the knees of the hind legs. The insect has very long thin whiskers, they are longer than the body.

The song grasshopper is often confused with the green grasshopper (Tettigonia viridissima). The green grasshopper is a different species. These two species are very similar in appearance and behavior. The song grasshopper has wider and shorter elytra than the green grasshopper. This difference is easiest to notice in females: the ovipositor, up to 3 centimeters long, is almost completely hidden by the elytra of the female green grasshopper and protrudes far from under the elytra of the female song grasshopper.

The lifespan of the singing grasshopper is short, only a few months, just like its brothers from the genus Tettigonia. Small grasshoppers come out into the world in early May, grow up and by mid-summer mature individuals appear, the time of reproduction begins. After mating, the female lays eggs in the ground, where they overwinter until the next year; the female makes several clutches during her life.

Adult grasshoppers settle on bushes, where they occupy certain territory, and protect her from the attacks of other males. During the day, the grasshopper feeds - it hunts for small winged insects, fillies, which it grabs with its powerful jaws and, holding with its front legs, eats. But sometimes he also eats leaves of cereals, and, for example, raspberries. However, this is nothing more than seasoning for a bloody steak.

Singing grasshoppers prefer to stay in bushes or tall grass; they can often be seen on nettles, and often climb trees. Therefore, the chirping of males of this species can be heard from afar. Like all grasshoppers, the chirping sound is produced by the front wings rubbing against each other. Males chirp not only during the mating period, but continue singing until the end of their lives, ending in the fall with the onset of cold weather. The female does not chirp. Each male mates with many females, and each female can mate with many males.

Only males chirp. The chirping sound is made to attract females. In order to see the grasshopper’s “whispering sound,” you need to spread its wings to the side. It’s immediately obvious: the front fenders, right and left, are not the same. One grasshopper wing at the base is dark and dense, and on the other wing in the same place there is a round window covered with a completely transparent film. But this is not a defect, not a deformity, not a mistake of nature, but a peculiar sound apparatus of a grasshopper. At the opaque base of the left wing, which always lies on top, there is a thickened transverse vein, which lies just above the window of the right wing. The window (“mirror”) has a very thick, high frame. When the slightly raised front wings move, a thick vein of the left wing, jagged underneath, rubs against this frame, producing a sound. The sound is amplified by a transparent membrane film stretched tightly over the frame of the right wing. The “bow” is wide in the middle and very narrow towards the ends, but the distances between the teeth are strictly the same along its entire length. That's the whole simple design of the grass jungle singer's musical apparatus. The wings of female song grasshoppers are strictly symmetrical, and there is not even a hint of a musical apparatus on them.