Crickets, grasshoppers and their allies (Orthoptera)
Orthopteroid insects in the British Isles include representatives
of four insect Orders: bush-crickets, grasshoppers and ground-hoppers
(Orthoptera); cockroaches (Dictyoptera); Earwigs (Dermaptera)
and stick insects (Phasmida). Within Cornwall and the Isles
of Scilly there are:
- 18 species of cricket and grasshopper;
- 2 species of cockroach (this total does not include those
cockroach species with established populations restricted
to artificially heated premises);
- 3 species of earwig;
- 3 species of stick insect.
Meadow Grasshopper Chorthippus parallelus
Photograph by Chris Haes
Basic details about the native orthopteroid insects occurring
in Cornwall and Scilly can be found in Orthoptera
of Cornwall & the Isles of Scilly: Native Species.
More details concerning the distribution of these species
in the County have been published in Orthopteroid Insects
of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly: An updated provisional
atlas, available from us at the Records Centre. Click
here to find out more details about this publication.
Over the last 100 years, three alien species of stick insects
have become naturalised outdoors in Cornwall, and all three
originated from New Zealand. The Smooth Stick Insect Clitarchus
hookeri has so far only been found in Tresco Abbey Gardens,
Isles of Scilly. The Prickly Stick Insect Acanthoxyla
geisovii and the Unarmed Stick Insect Acanthoxyla
inermis are both found in very localised colonies, usually
in gardens or waste ground near habitation. The latter species
is the most common and is now widely distributed in the county,
particularly around the Fal and Helford rivers. More details
about stick insects can be found in The
British & Irish Stick-insects produced by Malcolm
Lee.
Unarmed Stick-insect Acanthoxyla inermis
Photograph by Malcolm Lee
The use of bat detectors to record orthoptera by picking
up their ultrasound emissions, particularly from bush-crickets,
has been both a revolution and a revelation.
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