Northern Mole Cricket (Neocurtilla hexadactyla)
Song of a Northern Mole Cricket (scroll down for explanation and additional recordings!).
Northern Mole Crickets inhabit the damp margins of ponds and streams. They live in burrows in soft ground and are elegantly suited for a subterranean life style, with stubby front legs equipped with enlarged claws, specially suited for digging in soil and sand. Additional adaptations for life in tunnels include a streamlined body, short legs, and small wings. The diet of the Northern Mole Cricket consists primarily of small insects and other invertebrates, along with some organic debris and plant matter. Northern Mole Cricket males apparently call from closed burrows, probably to reduce their vulnerability to predators such as parasitic wasps. Nonetheless, their chirping is clearly audible above ground and it is easy to home in on the general location of a burrow. About half of all females are flightless and must travel on the surface or through the burrow system to reach the calling male. Burrows are equipped with an escape tunnel that allows the occupant to flee if pursued by a predator. Females lay their eggs in small chambers within the burrows. After sealing off her chamber, the female remains in the burrow
to defend the eggs. Capturing Northern Mole Crickets is a supreme challenge. With difficulty, they can be flushed from their burrows, or else collected in special pit traps designed to catch dispersing individuals.
Song: The song of the Northern Mole Cricket consists of repeated chirps, given at a rate of about two per second. Each chirp is actually a brief trill composed of about 8 pulses. The frequency of the song is quite low for an insect, about 2 kHz, making it the lowest-pitched singer of all our native crickets.
Sonogram of a Northern Mole Cricket. © Wil Hershberger.
Northern Mole Cricket
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Navigate to Species Pages:
Spring and Fall Field Cricket
Southern Wood Cricket
Southeastern Field Cricket
Eastern Striped Cricket
Japanese Burrowing Cricket
Ground Crickets (Nemobiinae):
Allard’s Ground Cricket
Carolina Ground Cricket
Confused Ground Cricket
Striped Ground Cricket
Southern Ground Cricket
Sphagnum Ground Cricket
Variegated Ground Cricket
Spotted Ground Cricket
Tinkling Ground Cricket
Cuban Ground Cricket
Tree Crickets (Oecanthinae):
Black-horned Tree Cricket
Forbes’s Tree Cricket
Broad-winged Tree Cricket
Davis’s Tree Cricket
Fast-calling Tree Cricket
Four-spotted Tree Cricket
Narrow-winged Tree Cricket
Pine Tree Cricket
Snowy Tree Cricket
Two-spotted Tree Cricket
Trigs and Bush Crickets (Eneopterinae & Trigonidiinae):
Jumping Bush Cricket
Columbian Trig
Handsome Trig
Say’s Trig
Thomas’s Trig
Slow-tinkling Trig
Mole Crickets (Gryllotalpidae):
Northern Mole Cricket
Southern Mole Cricket
FAMILY DESCRIPTION
Saltmarsh Meadow Katydid
Short-winged Meadow Katydid
Slender Meadow Katydid
Woodland Meadow Katydid
Black-sided Meadow Katydid
Long-tailed Meadow Katydid
Straight-lanced Meadow Katydid
Agile Meadow Katydid
Dusky-faced Meadow Katydid
Stripe-faced Meadow Katydid
Nimble Meadow Katydid
Black-legged Meadow Katydid
Common Meadow Katydid
Gladiator Meadow Katydid
Handsome Meadow Katydid
Lesser Pine Meadow Katydid
Long-spurred Meadow Katydid
Red-headed Meadow Katydid
Coneheads (Copiphorinae):
FAMILY DESCRIPTION
Round-tipped Conehead
Nebraska Conehead
Robust Conehead
Slightly Musical Conehead
Sword-bearing Conehead
False Robust Conehead
Marsh Conehead
Black-nosed Conehead
True Katydids (Pseudophyllinae):
FAMILY DESCRIPTION
Common True Katydid
False Katydids (Phaneropterinae):
FAMILY DESCRIPTION
Clicker Round-winged Katydid
Common Virtuoso Katydid
Rattler Round-winged Katydid
Oblong-winged Katydid
Great Angle-wing
Lesser Angle-wing
Broad-winged Bush Katydid
Curved-tailed Bush Katydid
Fork-tailed Bush Katydid
Northern Bush Katydid
Texas Bush Katydid
Treetop Bush Katydid
Modest Katydid
Shield-backed Katydids (Tettigoniinae):
FAMILY DESCRIPTION
American Shieldback
Least Shieldback
Protean Shieldback
Robust Shieldback
Roesel’s Katydid
Band-winged Grasshoppers (Oedipodinae):
Boll’s & Carolina Grasshoppers
Marsh Meadow Grasshopper