Spider Cricket
S1, Adult Female, profile
Spider Cricket
S1, Adult Female, anterior
Animals
Plants
Info
| Spider Cricket S1, Adult Female, profile | | Spider Cricket S1, Adult Female, anterior | | ||
Animals Plants Info |
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | ||||||||||||
| Order: | Crickets, Grasshoppers & Katydids (Orthoptera) | |||||||||||||
| Family: | Spider Cricket (Grylloidea:Phalangopsidae) iNaturalist Observation | |||||||||||||
| Species: | Spider Cricket (Endacusta australis)| This Photo: | S1, Adult Female, close up | Thank you Matthew Connors (Matthew_Connors) for identifying and Reiner Richter for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere Juveniles we've measured are ~10mm long, adult females ~18mm & adult males ~12mm long (body & head only). Not a lot is known of our Australian crickets. Like so many inverts, genital examination is often required to get below genus level to species. They love our carport, so often see them on the walls. Recently we noticed a couple shedding/moulting, and discovered that they eat their exuviae (disgarded exoskeleton). This is an excellent adaption to save precious resources. They use gravity to "fall" out of their old exoskeleton, but we've rotated a couple of the images to show more detail; as well as leaving one vertically to see the correct orientation. Guides used to separate specimens: 1. Female age is based on the length of ovipositor (adult: ovipositor is longer than cerci. 2. Females are wingless. 3. Adults males have short, square wings; they don't have full length wings. 4. Males don't have an ovipositor. We can't be sure all the specimens here are the same species. But they do look very similar and most were found in the same area.
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