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southeastern field cricket

Gryllus rubens Scudder 1902

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map long-winged male short-winged female female
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short & long wings four morphs male male
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female forewing file characters ovipositor length
9 s of calling song, male from Leon County, Fla., 25.4°C; smooth trill. Dominant frequency 4.8 kHz. (WTL482-189b)
This spectrogram is a 2 s excerpt of the 9 s audio file accessible above. The excerpt begins at 1.5 s.
spectrogram
22 s of calling song, male from Pope County, Ill., 24.0°C; stuttery trill. Dominant frequency 4.9 kHz. (WTL482-61)
This spectrogram is a 2 s excerpt of the 22 s audio file accessible immediately above. the excerpt begins at
0 s.
spectrogram
7 s of courtship song, male from Fla. Recording by D. A. Gray; used by permission.
This spectrogram is a 1 s excerpt of the 7 s audio file accessible above. The excerpt begins at 2 s.
spectrogram
Song: The trills of G. rubens vary in the regularity of the pulse sequences. When the pulses are interrupted by brief pauses lasting as long as a single pulse or a little longer, the trill sounds "stuttery." When the sequence of pulses is uninterrupted, the trill is "smooth." In some populations, stutter trilling is common. In others it is rare. Captured males do not always produce a single type of trill. The origin and significance of the variation in the smoothness of the trills is unknown.
Identification: This species and Gryllus texensis are the only trilling Gryllus in the eastern United States. (All others are chirpers.) G. texensis tends to produce shorter, more regular trills than G. rubens, but where they occur together, the two can be distinguished reliably only by the pulse rates of their calling songs—after the rates have been adjusted for temperature. Even though the two species are (thus far) almost indistinguishable morphologically (Gray et al. 2001) and readily hybridize in the laboratory, they maintain their integrity in the field (Walker 1998, 2000). A key to the adult males of native US Gryllus is in Weissman and Gray (2019).
DNA: See Gray, Weissman, et al. (2020).
Habitat: Lawns, pastures, and grassy roadsides.
Life cycle: No egg diapause. Two generations per year even at the north end of its range.
Season: Adult peak abundances in spring and fall.
Name derivation: Latin: "rubens" = "red, reddish"; in reference to the general reddish markings on the unique, long tegmina of the holotype female.
More information:
Subfamily Gryllinae, genus Gryllus.
References: Weissman and Gray 2019, pp83-101, pp83-90; Gray, Weissman, et al. 2020.
Nomenclature: OSF (Orthoptera Species File Online).
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