Singing insects' swan song

Here in Ohio, nighttime temperatures have plummeted and that, coupled with ever shorter days, have stimulated the onset of a riot of color. There is nothing like the explosion of fall colors in the great eastern deciduous forest, and we're nearing the peak in central and southern Ohio. Here, a pair of Jack-in-the-pulpit fruit clusters brightly punctuate a forest floor littered with fallen ash leaves.

The increasingly cool evenings are putting the kibosh on the fantastic fall symphony of singing insects, and I always find it a bit depressing when these charismatic fiddlers begin to wane. We're soon to enter winter's dormancy, when the singing insects - and nearly all other bugs - disappear. They're there, often in egg form, but out of sight and out of mind.

I managed to find and photograph quite a few Orthopterans ("singing insects") this summer and fall, and following are a few pictorial highlights.

This Differential Grasshopper, Melanoplus differentialis, is an Orthopteran, but it isn't really a "singing insect". Grasshoppers make rough blatting sounds with their wings that are termed crepitations. It isn't really very musical at all. The singing insects featured below are far more melodic. They also make music with their wings, but in general their sounds are far more pleasing to the ear than the crackles of a grasshopper.

A Black-horned Tree Cricket, Oecanthus nigricornis, on Canada Goldenrod. This stunning cricket is frequent in goldenrod meadows, and sings during the day.

One of the more melodic of our evening trillsters is the Broad-winged Tree Cricket, Oecanthus latipennis. This male is in full song. To sing, tree crickets raise their wings perpendicular to their body, which forms a translucent fan. He then rapidly vibrates the bases of the wings together, which rubs the file on one wing against the scraper of the opposing wing. Voila! Beautiful music! The expansive wing surfaces act like the cone of a stereo speaker, booming the cricket's trill forward. Move a bit to the side of the singer and the song dims noticeably; stand right in front and the volume greatly increases.

Orthopterans are tough and adaptable. They've been here for nearly 300 million years. That's WAY longer than humans (ca. 200,000 yrs). I suspect the songs of insects will still serenade the landscape long after we've managed to overpopulate ourselves out of existence.

This is a female meadow katydid (unknown species) snacking on the grains of grease grass. Orthopterans, at least most of them, eat plants and often common readily available fare, hence their abundance.

A Curve-tailed Bush Katydid, Scudderia curvicauda, on the browning leaf of a redbud. If you wish to find and photograph singing insects, you'll want to head out after dark. These animals are mostly nocturnal, and can often be easily found and approached at night.

A Fork-tailed Bush Katydid, Scudderia fasciata. teed up and singing atop a thistle. This is a large insect, but it creates a rather inconsequential song of one or a few zip notes. People are often surprised by the size of the insect, after first hearing the feeble song.

I was delighted to encounter a meadow in Adams County this September that was full of interesting Orthopterans, including many of these. This whimsical looking beast is the Common Virtuoso Katydid, and it has the most ornate song of any of the singing insects. CLICK HERE to hear one.

If you couldn't hear the entire song of the Virtuoso Katydid at the link above, you're not alone. Many of the notes of this species, and other Orthopterans, are at a frequency that is beyond our hearing. Part of this species' song is a soft pleasant shuffling, and that component of the song jumps out to me, and that's how I find them. Many of the Virtuoso's notes are apparently beyond my ear's capabilities.

Most people have no problems hearing Lesser Anglewings, Microcentum retinerve. They're quite loud, and create a castanetlike shuffling sound. They're also drawn to nightlights and often appear on door screens and walls around porch lights.

A personal favorite is the coneheads. Yes, coneheads. That's really what this group of bullet-shaped katydids are called. Coneheads are hardly melodic, but their songs are usually distinctive and in the case of several species, ear-splittingly loud. This is a Round-tipped Conehead, Neoconocephalus retusus, a common species of grassy roadsides and meadows. CLICK HERE to hear its loud trill, which sounds like a shorted out electrical line. It may ring a bell.

Visual identification of coneheads is aided by inspecting their namesake cone. Round-tipped Coneheads have a glossy black line cresting the front of the cone.

This conehead is probably the loudest of them all. It is the aptly named Robust Conehead, Neoconocephalus robustus. CLICK HERE to listen to one. These sound files come from The Songs of Insects, an epic book and website by Wil Hershberger and Lang Elliott. Here's what they have to say about the Robust Conehead: "Can be heard more than a thousand feet away! At close range, it becomes painful to listen to. One would think that the insect would burst into flames from the friction produced from creating such an intense song".

In tight on the greenish unmarked cone of the Robust Conehead. The powerful mandibles - just under the leg - are formidable. Coneheads eat lots of hard seeds, and have the jaw power to deal with such things. I've handled many of them, and they can put a bit of pinch on the soft flesh of your fingers!

This is the Sword-bearing Conehead, Neoconocephalus ensiger. It creates a loud shuffling quite unlike the two previous coneheads. Around here, this species along with the Round-tipped Conehead is a common duet along grassy roadsides at night. The animal in the photo is in full song. It basically "fluffs" its wings and rapidly rubs the translucent areas at the front of the wings together to make its music.

Just a handful of tough singers are hanging on, and even they will soon be gone. I still hear the jerky sputterings of Carolina Ground Crickets, wheezy chirps of Striped Ground Crickets, and the slightly more melodic trills of Allard's Ground Crickets. An occasional grating crackling of a Round-tipped Conehead still issues from the grasses, and the ubiquitous Jumping Bush Crickets give occasional chirps. By and large, the symphony is in intermission until next summer, though.

Insect sings like a frog

An oblong-winged katydid, Amblycorypha oblongifolia, shouts his song to the night.

I was tasked with leading a nocturnal foray last Friday night in Ohio's northeasternmost county, Ashtabula. Insects, of course, were a dominant part of the evening's festivities. Many in the group were birders, and I always enjoy sharing the songs of insects with birdwatchers who may not be in tune with the Orthopteran symphony.

Most, or at least many, birders strive to improve their ability to recognize bird calls. It isn't always easy, depending upon the amount of tin in your ear, but the dividends of improved bird call recognition are enormous - you'll find WAY more birds. Come late summer, though, the level of songbird song drops way off. What's an aspiring song-learner to do, short of pulling out the tapes for practice?

Turn your ear to the bugs! The Orthopterans - crickets, coneheads, katydids and the like - start to come on strong about the same time that bird song falls off the acoustical cliff. The various fiddles of the "singing insects" can also be learned, just as can bird calls. Some are easy and in your face; other species have much subtler tunes, or sound a lot like other species. It's fun and rewarding to learn to sort them out, and doing so will make one far more adept at mastering bird song.

We move in much closer to the oblong-winged katydid in the preceding shot. I had heard him from some distance away, singing back in a scruffy woodland opening. Once pointed out to the group, everyone quickly keyed in on the animal's song. It is a rather loud scratchy ree-DIP that sounds like a frog. Hear it for yourself, RIGHT HERE.

Experience has taught me that this species, and some of the other bush katydids, "tee up" when singing, just as many songbirds do. You just can't see them, because its dark. But by moving furtively, following the sound, and shining a flashlight well out in front, you can sometimes spot the six-legged singer from afar. That's what we did in this case, and the cooperative if not somewhat perplexed bug sat tight atop his twig and allowed many of the group to close in for a good look.

The nocturnal world of sound is a fascinating subject, and is all around us. Many of the singing insects are urbanites, and liable to calling in your backyard right now. As I write this, from my home in the big city, I can hear fall field cricket, Japanese burrowing cricket (blog to come), two-spotted tree cricket, greater and lesser anglewing katydids, and more. They are creating the night's sound track; a staple feature of the ambiance of late summer and fall evenings.

A landmark book that brought the conspicuous yet hidden world of singing insects into the public eye is the Songs of Insects, by Lang Elliott and Wil Hershberger. This is one of the finest natural history works in modern times, and greatly aids one's ability to easily learn many of these insects. The photography is stunning, and it comes with a CD of sounds. Get it RIGHT HERE.

Sounds of the night

Participants in last weekend's Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalists workshop gather at twilight on Saturday night. We were out for whatever we could find, especially singing insects, or Orthopterans.

I LOVE nighttime excursions. A whole new world emerges after nightfall, and not nearly enough people get out to see the strange creatures of the blackness. Especially prominent from mid-July on through fall are the various insects that make sound: katydids, crickets, coneheads and their ilk. Insect songs can be learned just as those of birds, and knowing the nighttime singers adds an entirely new dimension to one's appreciation of natural history.

There are not an abundance of opportunities to get out with people who know these things, but attendees at the Midwest Native Plant Conference certainly will. The conference venue is the Marianist Environmental Education Center, 150 or so acres of plant diversity. We'll have night walks both Friday and Saturday night, and the numbers and diversity of singing insects should be spectacular. More conference info HERE.

We heard scads of Gladiator Meadow Katytdids, their songs resembling the shuffling of salt being roughly shaken in a shaker. It wasn't long before Nina of Nature Remains found one of the little singers doing its thing. These are showy little animals, somewhat resembling lime-green grasshoppers with lemon-yellow cerci and orangish eyes.

I use my I-pod Touch to play the songs of these bugs for people, so they can better learn to pick the targeted song from the cacophony of night sounds. When I played the Gladiator Meadow Katydid's song, a few of the insects clearly responded, just as birds will do.

There were plenty of Nebraska Coneheads about, the males singing their loud short buzzes. George Keeney eventually collared this fellow. Some coneheads, especially the Robust Conehead, are astonishingly loud and everyone who ventures into the countryside at night hears them. Few, probably, would suspect the crackling buzzes emanate from this very cool looking insect.

Nina's sharp eyes once again rewarded the group by finding this Broad-winged Bush Katydid snacking on the flowers of Sullivant's Milkweed, Asclepias sullivantii. These critters must have bulletproof constitutions, as all parts of milkweeds are infused with highly toxic cardiac glycosides.

Here's a male Broad-winged Bush Katydid ascending a flowering stem of Small-flowered Agrimony, Agrimonia parviflora. This species is also called the "Counting Katydid" and they are cool in the extreme. The slightly drawn out raspy notes are quite distinctive and easily recognized. And they truly count! A typical series begins with two notes; the next contains three; followed by four, etc. Sometimes they'll count all the way to eight!

It seems as if the males like to ascend tall plants to sing, perhaps the better to project their voice. If you know their song, it isn't too tough to find the singer.

Around these parts - central Ohio - the Common True Katydids have just started producing their loud rasps. Last Saturday night was the first time I had heard any this summer. Normally, the katydids are too high in the trees to see, but I happened to notice this male down low on the foliage of an American Elm, Ulmus americana. They are big, and look astonishingly leaf-like.

To learn more about singing insects, visit Wil Hershberger and Lang Elliot's outstanding Songs of Insects website. You can even play the songs of our Orthopterans there. Wil has a sensational talk filled with brilliant imagery and sounds, and he is keynote speaker at the aforementioned Midwest Native Plant Conference. And I'm sure he'll come along for our Friday evening foray into the dark.