Grasshoppers and Crickets

Reprint of an article that appeared in the Summer 2011 Edition of Common Ground.

By Ian Beavis.

Late summer is the peak period for seeing – and in some cases hearing – grasshoppers and crickets. We regularly find them on our Museum mini-beast safaris in August, and the question always asked is how to tell the difference between the two. The answer is easy: grasshoppers have short antennae, much shorter than the body, while crickets have very long, thread-like antennae.

There are three species of grasshoppers and five crickets found on the Commons. All of them live in grass or other low vegetation, with the exception of the pale green Oak Bush-cricket. This lives high up in trees and is rarely seen unless it gets blown down or is attracted to lights at night. Grasshoppers and some crickets can be recognised by their characteristic songs, made by rubbing their hind legs against their wings, and used by the two sexes to communicate with each other while remaining camouflaged among foliage. The easiest song to pick out is the monotonous chirp of the Field Grasshopper, while its relatives the Meadow Grasshopper and Common Green Grasshopper have a more complex song that starts softly, builds in volume and suddenly cuts off.

Each of these three grasshopper species is found in a bewildering variety of colours. They can be various shades of brown, green or even purple, or any combination of these. All are useful for camouflage, and clearly none has an overriding competitive advantage, so all coexist in the gene pool. To identify grasshoppers, it is necessary to ignore the colour and focus on structural features. Field Grasshoppers have abundant white hairs on the underside, clearly visible in profile, and long wings. Common Green Grasshoppers also have long wings but lack the hairs. Meadow Grasshoppers have wings that are clearly shorter than the body, less than half its length in the case of the female.

Crickets are much less variable. The Oak Bush-cricket is one of two fully winged species, the other being the wonderfully named Long-winged Conehead, easily recognised by its pointed head. This used to be a rare species of wetlands, but in recent years it has spread much more widely.

Roesel’s Bush-cricket is also much commoner than it was, and is characterised by a bright yellow or green U shape on the side of its body, contrasting with a darker background. The remaining species have always been widespread. These are the large dull brown Dark Bush-cricket and the smaller Speckled Bush-cricket, which is green but peppered with innumerable tiny black specks.