Ottes Pygmy Cricket
S2, Female, profile
Confusing Pygmy Cricket
S2, Female, dorsal
| Ottes Pygmy Cricket S2, Female, profile | | Confusing Pygmy Cricket S2, Female, dorsal | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | |||
| Order: | Crickets, Grasshoppers & Katydids (Orthoptera) | ||||
| Family: | Pygmy Cricket (Grylloidea: Trigonidiidae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Ottes Pygmy Cricket (Calperum ottei) | ||||
| This Photo: | 🔍S2, Female, face🔎 | ||||
Thank you Matthew Connors & David Muirhead for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere 1st Live Photo on-line: Mottled reddish brown crickets with a couple of dark abdominal bands and 2 diagnostic central pale dorsal spots. They have a distinctive horizontal black band covering the lower half of their face; which carries through their eyes. Her ovi-positor sheaths have finely serrated tips; possibly the reason for the families other common name of "Sword-tail" Crickets. Females are ~5-6mm, with ovipositor ~3-4mm. We didn't measure our male but according to our source "A guide to Crickets of Australia" by Rentz & Su, males are slightly smaller. Both genders are wingless. These are well known in the Murray Mallee, and are often found with Mallee Dwarf Cricket (Territirritia tya) in larger quantities; which we've also experienced. Given they are a winter species, the January sighting is strange; it was a hot, wet summer. | |||||
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