Wart-Biter Cricket

Posted by Martin R on August 12, 2007
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Last night when I turned out the lights, something the size of a mouse jumped out of a lamp. We’ve had a bit of summer heat lately, and the balcony door has been open a lot. The creature turned out to be a wart-biter Great Green Bush-cricket female (Dectius verrucivorus Tettigonia viridissima), longer than my little finger and shiny green. I put a plastic box over her and slid a paper under before shooting photos and releasing her into the night. While in the box, she assiduously cleaned her toes with her jaws. A welcome visit.

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Comments

  1. #1 Hauke
    August 12, 2007

    Sorry to correct you on that, but this is not the wart-biter but rather the Great Green Bush-cicket Tettigonia viridissima.
    Nice pictures, especially the first one!

  2. #2 Martin R
    August 12, 2007

    Thank you for setting me straight. I thought it might be a viridissima (it was indeed exceptionally green), but the long pointy butt wasn’t there on the viridissima pics I found on the net.

  3. #3 Christina
    August 12, 2007

    Either way, it makes me homesing…we used to have lots of those, and now my family thinks I’m nuts when I ask them if they’ve ever seen a wart biter.

  4. #4 windy
    August 12, 2007

    The “long pointy butt” means that it’s a girl, Martin. :)

  5. #5 Martin R
    August 13, 2007

    Christina, anyone who’s ever breastfed a 12-month baby should be painfully familiar with wart biters. (-;

    Windy, thank, that I did gather from the pix. The pix are of course just an excuse to show off some primo booty.

  6. #6 Joseph Jackson
    September 6, 2008

    We have found what we now think, is a wart biter. It lloks like a cricket and is about two and a half inches long. Are these rare, it’s the first one we have seen in the West Country?

  7. #7 Martin R
    September 7, 2008

    Sorry, Joseph, I know little about insects and I don’t even know in which country the West Country is.