Alexander’s tree cricket
Oecanthus n.sp. B

map	male	male
antennal markings

15 s of calling song [1.07MB]; male from Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, Hidalgo Co., Texas; 27.5°C. (WTL575-3-b)

Spectrogram of 5 s of calling at 27.5°C (from WTL575-3-b). Dominant frequency 2.3 kHz.
Click on spectrogram to hear graphed song.

Spectrogram of 1 s of calling, featuring the middle chirp of the song graphed above.
Click on spectrogram to hear the chirp played at 1/8 speed (and at 1/8 its dominant frequency).

Context of this page:  Nancy Collins, a nurse in Racine, Wisconsin, developed an interest in Oecanthinae in the summer of 2006 and has pursued that interest with vigor ever since. She has, for example, founded a Tree Cricket Appreciation Group on Facebook (currently with 17 members) and authored a well-illustrated web site on the subfamily. Laurel Symes, a graduate student at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, decided in January 2009 to make Oecanthinae the focal clade in proposed research on speciation, mate recognition, and sexual selection. When Nancy planned to go to south Texas to seek Neoxabea formosa and Oecanthus leptogrammus (the two U.S. tree crickets whose songs have yet to be recorded), she invited Laurel to go with her and Laurel accepted. They visited sites along the lower Rio Grande from 16 to 19 May 2009. Although they failed to find the two species that led them to the area, they heard the characteristic calling song illustrated above in three counties, Nancy recorded the songs in two, and Laurel collected a specimen in one. Based on the recordings, I concluded that the species was a member of the O. rileyi species group, previously unknown in the United States and not formally described. In a second trip to south Texas, Nancy collected the male that is pictured above.

While I was certain that the species was not formally described, I realized that it might have been among the species R.D. Alexander recognized, recorded and collected in field work in Mexico in 1965. Alexander suggested I study the oecanthines from this trip, and as reported on p. 791 in my 1967 paper on Latin American tree crickets, there were at least eight undescribed species. On the basis of resurrected notes, I believe that one of these eight is what Nancy and Laurel found along the U.S. side of the Rio Grande in south Texas.--T.J. Walker, June 2009.

Identification:  Length n–m mm.

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More information:  genus Oecanthus, subfamily Oecanthinae.

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