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Sticker of Italian tree cricket
Bug card No. 0781 of 1,500

Italian tree cricket

Oecanthus pellucens
Eats: A bit of everythingGrasshoppers and cricketsGardens and meadows6 legs

The Italian tree cricket is a slim, straw-coloured cricket with feelers longer than its whole body. It is a night singer. On warm summer nights the boys rub their wings together and fill the meadows with a soft, wobbly song.

Lives in
Most of Europe, especially around the Mediterranean, and also North Africa and the Near East
Length
1 to 1.4 cm (0.39 to 0.55 in)
girls are a little bigger than boys
Top speed
about 2.5 km/h (1.6 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It is a gentle singer that does not bite or sting.
What does it eat?
It nibbles leaves, pollen and petals, but it also eats aphids, spiders and insect larvae.
For real!Photo of Italian tree cricket
Picture by Hectonichus. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Italian tree cricket about 1.4 cm long (0.55 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
as long as 2.5 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 1.4 secondsmoves 50 times its own body length every second

How big is Italian tree cricket compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The boys can sing from about five in the evening until three in the morning.

2

The mum lays her eggs inside plant stems, very often in grape vines.

3

In 2015 people found the first group of these crickets living in Britain, in Kent.

4

The girl has a long, slightly curved egg-laying tube with a little club at the end.

5

A boy starts to sing just a few days after his last change of skin.

you asked

Most asked questions about Italian tree cricket

?What does the Italian tree cricket eat?

It eats leaves, pollen and petals, and also small animals like aphids and spiders.

?When does the tree cricket sing?

The boys sing at night in summer, from evening until early morning.

?How big is the Italian tree cricket?

It is about 10 to 14 millimetres long, and the girls are a bit bigger.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Oecanthus pellucens
Named by
Scopoli, 1763
Group
Grasshoppers and crickets
Family
Oecanthidae
Classification
Insecta > Orthoptera > Oecanthidae
Lives on
Europe, Africa, Asia
Also known as
European tree cricket

Where the facts come from

  1. Oecanthus pellucens (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Hectonichus. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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