Typically, adult mole crickets have wings and can fly. However, in some species such as the short-winged mole cricket, the wings grow only to a small size, not nearly big enough for flight. In other species, such as the northern mole cricket, adults in some geographic areas do not develop large wings and cannot fly, though in other areas most or all of the adults develop fully-sized wings. Mole cricket nymphs are wingless, but the larger nymphs have wing-buds which will develop into wings at the final molt to the adult phase.
It may be that most flights by mole crickets are short, but a flight of 5 miles by a paint-marked mole cricket has been recorded. Mole crickets arrived at lights on a fishing boat, many miles off Florida's east coast on one night in March, 1992, according to Harold Jones, Duval County extension agent, but the species of mole cricket and exact location were not recorded. They fly clumsily, though they dig very well in sandy soils. The body is covered by a dense matte of short setae which seems to trap a layer of air around the body when a mole cricket is in water; consequently, mole crickets are buoyant, not easily wetted, and they can swim well enough to reach the shore if they fall or land accidentally in canals and rivers.
Adult mole crickets have two pairs of wings (fore-wings and hind-wings). Wings are covered by a network of "veins" which are tough tubes supporting the wing membranes; spaces between the veins are called cells. Fore-wings of males and females differ slightly. Fore-wings of the males have a pair of large cells, the anterior of which is has been described as harp-shaped, in fact shaped like a tiny outline map of Florida. The two cells together are called the stridulatory area. Females lack such large cells. In males, one of the veins on each wing is modified with a line of tiny teeth to form a stridulatory file; this file is drawn across a scraper on the other wing as the wings close, and this makes a noise. Males make this noise - song - by opening and closing the wings. They amplify the song by widening the mouth of their gallery into a funnel-shape, much like the speaker of a radio. The arrangement of the teeth in the stridulatory file differs from species to species, so the song differs from species to species. Males open and close the wings many times in rapid succession to sing, but sound is produced only as they close. Females do not sing. The songs are species-specific and unvarying. Tawny and southern mole cricket songs are continuous trills that differ in tone (carrier frequency, measured in kHz) and pulse rate (pulses/second). The song of the southern mole cricket is 2.7 kHz and 50 pulses/second, whereas that of the tawny mole cricket is 3.3 kHz and 130 pulses/second. The loudness of the songs varies but is typically about 70 dB at 15 cm from the source. The hearing organs ("ears") of mole crickets are on the tibiae of the front legs.
Mole crickets fly at night. Flights begin soon after sunset and end after little more than an hour in both the tawny mole cricket and southern mole cricket.