Mole Cricket

Artist:

Melissa Pons

Alentejo, Portugal

Notes:

A loud, piercing and persistent sound like this is not easy to ignore. The mole cricket (Gryllotalpa gryllotalpa) is one of the loudest in the field. A small (3–5 cm), alien looking insect in the order Orthoptera, that spends a good amount of time self-burrowed, singing from there.
It is the male that has the loudest song which can reach 115 dB by the mouth of the burrow, which is meticulously shaped by the cricket in order to amplify its sound.
As it happens with other species, the frequency and pulse varies with a few different factors. In this recording, the fundamental tone is almost precisely at 3000 Hz with harmonics following at 6kHz, 9 kHz and 15 kHz. For the record, the temperature on this early Autumn night was 20ºC and the level of humidity around 91%.

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Mole Cricket

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