The MGS Forum
Gardening in mediterranean climates => Wildlife in the garden (birds, butterflies, and how to attract them) => Topic started by: JTh on August 23, 2012, 07:22:23 PM
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The Pella area (northern Greece, west of Thessaloniki) was declared “locust-plagued” following reports from across the area that swarms of the insects have descended on farmland in May this year. The photogenic grasshopper below was seen on one of my roses several years ago, but I have still not found out which species this is, but I don’t think it is one of those causing the plague which also reached other parts of Greece.
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Grasshoppers do quite a bit of damage in our garden. We have some huge ones here. Any suggestions on how to get rid of them, apart from ambushing and grabbing them?
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Jorun: cracking photo; mean bugger he is!
Alice: get some really big praying mantids!
Here's a different one from my garden (http://www.mgsforum.org/smf/index.php?topic=160.msg511#msg511)
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Am just re-reading the Gerald Durrell books, and yes, mantids would appear to be a good answer, BUT, they would also consume moths, butterflys and anything else they could get their claws into. So is this another case of moderation required to try to achieve some sort of balence?
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Thanks, Mike, the photo was taken with my first digital camera, which I bought in 1999, I am pleasantly surprised to see that the photos taken with that are still acceptable. And I don't find it mean looking, I think it is a splendid specimen.
Does anybody know which species this might be? I have so far not seen any signs of much damage done by these grasshopper
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JTh, your monster might be a Metrioptera roeselii (Roesel's Bush-cricket), possibly a male. If it is, its diet consists of grasses, grass seeds and small insects, which would explain the lack of damage in your garden.
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I see that the adult Roesel's bush-crickets are medium sized and between 13–26 mm in length, they are a lot smaller than the one in the photo, which is gigantic in comparison.
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The long thin antennae suggest that it is either a cricket (Gryllidae family) or a bush cricket (Tettigoniidae). After studying the photo more carefully I now suspect it might be a lady - I think I detect an ovipositor. Not much help, I am afraid - where are the grasshopper experts??
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Alice,
One of the places the 'grasshopper experts' are is behind the scenes at http://bugguide.net/node/view/73.
There is a lot of good data there, but it can take a long time to identify a species from its photo.
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I have checked your bug-link, Mike, but it did not help much. I believe I found the name of it, though, thanks to the hints from Alice; it seems to be a female Pholidoptera fallax (Fischer's bush cricket), which has a slightly curved oviposititory which is up to 13 mm long. The location is also right, according to Wikipedia, it is mainly present in Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Romania, Greece, Slovenia and Switzerland.
The family they belong to (Tettigoniidae) are primarily feeding on small insects, so it seems as if they may be useful in the garden.
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Glad you got your man (or in this case, woman), JTh! There seem to be vast numbers of species.
Mike, I thought your entomological expertise might extend to grasshoppers...
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Alice, thanks for the thought! No - with grasshoppers, and many other groups of invertebrates, I know only a little. But with every new specimen, I know a little more than I knew before.