Mole Cricket

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Can you let me know the range of this species? I heard similar calls (like the one in the first post) in October in my village in Odisha. It was very sharp and I had to search for a long time to realise that one of the pipe motors is not making that sound. Then I thought that it might be a frog and then zeroed in to a cricket. There were several such calls from different directions. Festivities were going on with loud music, so recording the sound didn't make any sense to me. Did you manage to click a photo?

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Can you let me know the range of this species? ... Did you manage to click a photo?

I did not manage to actually see any on this occasion. I did see one during my subsequent trip to the Nilgiris, but no images. I was later reading about mole crickets on the internet when I found an audio file in one article, and it matched the one I had recorded. Otherwise it would probably have been left unidentified!

Gryllotalpa are quite widespread all over the world in areas with suitable habitats. The one in India is probably G. orientalis (there has been some confusion about this and the similar African species in the past, I haven't read details about the current status). No doubt they would be found in Odisha too. This group has some of the loudest insect species recorded.