Vineyard mole-cricket
The vineyard mole-cricket is a digging cricket from southwestern Europe with front legs like little shovels. It is thought to be the loudest insect in the world. The male sings from a special burrow that works like a loudspeaker.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its song is so loud that you can hear it about 600 metres away.
The male digs a Y-shaped burrow with two horn-shaped openings. A round room inside makes his song much louder.
He sings by rubbing a scraper on one wing against a row of tiny teeth on the other. This makes his wings buzz about 3500 times a second.
It sings about half an hour after sunset to call a female.
Scientists found out it was a new kind of mole cricket because its song sounded different.
Most asked questions about Vineyard mole-cricket
?What is the loudest insect?
The vineyard mole-cricket is thought to be the loudest. Its song can be heard about 600 metres away.
?How does the vineyard mole-cricket sing?
The male rubs his wings together inside a burrow that makes the sound much louder.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Gryllotalpa vineae
- Named by
- Bennet-Clark, 1970
- Group
- Grasshoppers and crickets
- Family
- Gryllotalpidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Orthoptera > Gryllotalpidae
- Lives on
- Europe
Where the facts come from
- Gryllotalpa vineae (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Júlio Reis. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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