The primary goal of this Web site is to enable users to identify crickets, katydids, and cicadas from America north of Mexico. The males of most species in these groups make loud, persistent calls that attract sexually ready, conspecific females. Because the songs are loud and species specific they are usually an easy means of identifying the caller. They also facilitate field and laboratory studies of many sorts.
Secondary goals are to attract amateur and professional biologists to the study of singing insects and to provide helpful information and access to literature.
New book: Recent book: The Songs of Insects, by Lang Elliott and Wil Hershberger, 2006. Identification manual: Field Guide to Grasshoppers, Katydids, and Crickets of the United States. Important: Portions of Singing Insects of North America [SINA] will take about two more years to complete. In the meanwhile, the parts that are complete or in progress are open for use. To determine the status of any of the five major divisions of SINA click on one of the navigation buttons at the top of this page. Go to this page ("Home") and click on How to recognize crickets, katydids, and cicadas. Go to the division dealing with Crickets, Katydids, or Cicadas and click on the Keys button. When you must decide among the species within a genus, seek advice or help on the genus page. Then browse the species pages and accept or reject the choices on the basis of appearance, song, morphological features, and geographical, seasonal, and ecological distribution. Go to the division dealing with Crickets, Katydids, or Cicadas and click on the List of Species button. In the checklist, find the species (by scientific or common name) and click on the link.
Go to the appropriate division (Crickets, Katydids, or Cicadas) and click on the List of Species button. Within the checklist, find the genus or subfamily (by scientific or common name) and click on the link. Go to the subfamily page (from the key to subfamilies or from the list of species). The first section of the subfamily page will have a link to the key to genera. Most of the pages in Singing Insects of North America [SINA] are either taxa pages (for example, species pages, genus pages, subfamily pages, and family pages) or image pages. Image pages display the "regular" version of an image (see Image views), describe the image, and give its source. They are usually accessed from thumbnails of the image on a taxon page. Other types of pages are pictorial key pages, checklist pages (accessed from "List of species" buttons), and general information pages (such as this one). SINA has dark-green buttons and gold buttons that facilitate rapid movement to and from every part of the site. The dark-green buttons, at the top of most pages, take the user to the major divisions of SINA. The gold buttons, at the bottom of species pages and at the top of most image pages, are for local moves. The text on each button identifies its action. "Next Species" and "Previous Species" buttons move the user from species to species in the same (alphabetical) order as in the checklists. "Next Image" and "Previous Image" buttons move the user among images of a species in the same sequence as they occur in thumbnail views on a taxon page. Most images can be viewed in three sizes: thumbnail (128 pixels wide or less), regular (usually 640 pixels wide), and jumbo (usually 1280 pixels wide). To move up the scale of magnification, click on the image. To move down from a jumbo view, use the Back function of your browser. To move down from a regular view, use the appropriate local navigation button. Most links on this site are internal--that is, they go to items that are posted as part of SINA. Links that go to items that are not part of SINA are identified by the text for the link being a URL. For example, here is an external link to the online version of the Orthoptera Species File: http://osf2.orthoptera.org/basic/HomePage.asp. And here is an internal one to How to use SINA. All references in SINA are now listed both in a union list and in at least one subject-specific list of references. The subject-specific lists are on the pages for particular SINA subjects, usually subfamilies or genera. This places the most relevant references for these subjects in a place where they can be browsed efficiently. The union list is primarily to provide an efficient means to determine whether a known reference is available in full text on this site. More than 250 of the more than 650 listed references are so available, usually in the form of PDF files made by scanning articles or reprints.
Citations to literature in the text of SINA are made by the name-year system (e.g., Walker 1974). Each in-text citation is linked, as in the example just given, to an entry in a list of references. Each entry specifies the item of literature in enough detail to permit its retrieval from a library that holds it. In some cases the entry is linked to the full text of the item in PDF format. [Note: PDF files of full text are often large and take many minutes to download without a fast connection to the Internet.] The PDF document "Coding system for SINA files" explains how SINA's more than 5000 files are named. Other acknowledgements Piotr Naskrecki encouraged us make an interactive Web site that could be distributed via CDs rather than merely make audio CDs of the songs of North American insects. The CD accompanying his Katydids of Costa Rica (http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/book/book.htm) inspired us to begin this project, and we have shamelessly copied, with his approval, many of the devices that make his CD so compelling.
During more than 40 years of studying crickets and katydids in North America, indoors and out, I've been helped in large ways and small by more persons than I can remember. The ones listed here are among those who deserve special credit.
Alexander RD, Otte D. 1967. The evolution of genitalia and mating behavior in crickets (Gryllidae) and other Orthoptera. Misc Publ Mus Zool, Univ Michigan, No. 133. 62 p. [4939 KB]
Alexander RD, Pace AE, Otte D. 1972. The singing insects of Michigan. Gt. Lakes Entomol. 5: 33-69. [3627 KB]
Barnum AH. 1952. The taxonony of Utah Orthoptera with notes on distribution. M.A. thesis, Zoology and Entomology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.
Blatchley WS. 1920. Orthoptera of northeastern America. Indianapolis, IN: Nature Publishing. 784 p. Title page and introduction: pp. 1-40 [3392 KB]. PDF files of other parts are with the accounts of crickets and katydids and their families and subfamilies.
Cantrall IJ. 1941. Compendium of entomological methods. Pt II. Notes on collecting and preserving Orthoptera. Rochester, NY: Wards Natural Science Establishment. 28 p. [3236 KB]
Cantrall IJ. 1943. The ecology of the Orthoptera and Dermaptera of the George Reserve, Michigan. Misc Publ Mus Zool Univ Mich no. 54. 182 pp + 10 plates.
Cantrall IJ. 1968. An annotated list of the Dermaptera, Dictyoptera, Phasmatoptera, and Orthoptera of Michigan. Mich. Entomol. 1: 299-346.
Dethier VG. 1992. Crickets and katydids, concerts and solos. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 140 p.
Eades DC, Otte D. 2002+ Orthoptera Species File Online. Version 2.0/3.5.
[Continually updated online database.]
Fulton BB. 1930. Notes on Oregon Orthoptera with descriptions of new species and races. Ann Entomol Soc Am 23(4):611-641. [2980 KB]
Fulton BB. 1932. North Carolina's singing Orthoptera. J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc. 47: 55-69. [1259 KB]
Fulton BB. 1951. The seasonal succession of orthopteran stridulation near Raleigh, North Carolina. J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc. 67: 87-95. [762 KB]
Gangwere SK. 1961.
A monograph on food selection in Orthoptera. Trans. Am. Entomol. Soc. 87: 67-230. [10.4MB]
Gwynne DL. 1995. Phylogeny of the Ensifera (Orthoptera): a hypothesis supporting multiple origins of acoustical signalling, complex spermatophores and maternal care in crickets, katydids, and weta. J. Orthop. Res. 4: 203-218. [2475 KB]
Hebard M. 1934. Dermaptera and Orthoptera in the Kansas State College Collection. J. Kans. Entomol. Soc. 7: 25-36. [986 KB]
Hebard M. 1935. Orthoptera of the Upper Rio Grande Valley and the adjacent mountains in northern New Mexico. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. 87: 45-47, 69-82. [pp. 48-68 omitted] [1500 KB]
Hubbell TH. 1936. A monographic revision of the genus Ceuthophilus (Orthoptera, Gryllacrididae, Rhaphidophorinae). Univ Fla Publ Biol Sci Series vol. 2, no. 1. 551 p., 38 pl.
McAtee WL, Caudell AN. 1918. First list of the Dermaptera and Orthoptera of Plummers Island, Maryland, and vicinity. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 19:100-122.
McCafferty WP, Stein JL. 1976. Indiana Ensifera (Orthoptera). Gt. Lakes Entomol. 9: 25-56.
Naskrecki P, Otte D. 1997-2002. Orthoptera
Species File Online. [See Otte, Eades, and Naskrecki 2001+ for the continuation.]
Nickle DA, Carlysle TC. 1975. Morphology and function of female sound-producing structures in ensiferan Orthoptera with special emphasis on the Phaneropterinae. Int. J. Insect Morph. Embryol. 4: 159-168.
Otte D, Eades DC, Naskrecki P. 2001+. Orthoptera Species File Online (Version 2). [Continually updated online database: see Eades and Otte 2002+ for the continuation.]
Rehn JAG, Hebard M. 1916. Studies in the Dermaptera and Orthoptera of the Coastal Plain and Piedmont region of the southeastern United States. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. 68: 87-314. 2 pl. [7,052 KB] [The pdf file omits caeliferans; it has pp. 87-111, 253-312, 314 and pl. 14.]
Rentz DCF, Weissman DB. 1981. Faunal affinities, systematics, and bionomics of the Orthoptera of the California Channel Islands. U Calif Publ in Entomology 94: 1-240. [The PDF file includes only a key to taxa and accounts and images of Gryllidae & Tettigoniidae: pp
48-57, 88-112, 213-232.] [5721 KB]
Sharov AG. [1968] 1971. Phylogeny of the Orthopteroidea [translation]. Jerusalem: Israel Program for Scientific Translations. 251 p.
Stoetzel MB. 1989. Common names of insects & related organisms. Lanham, MD: Entomological Society of America. 199 p.
Tinkham ER. 1948. Faunistic and ecological studies on the Orthoptera of the Big Bend Region of Trans-Pecos Texas with especial reference to the orthopteran zones and faunae of Midwestern North America. Am Midl Nat 40: 521-663. [pp. 521-556 and 620-663 only; 6948 KB]
Vickery VR, Kevan DKM. 1985. The grasshoppers, crickets, and related insects of Canada and adjacent regions. Ottawa: Canadian Govt Publ Center. 918 p. [ISBN 0-660-11749-5]
Walker TJ. 1974. Character displacement and acoustic insects. Am. Zool. 14: 1137-1150. [3025 KB]
Yang J-T, Chao J-T, Liu W-Y. 1994. Collecting crickets (Orthoptera: Gryllidae) using peanut butter bait traps. J. Orthop. Res. 3: 87-89.
How to recognize crickets, katydids, and cicadas
This well-designed guide enables the user to identify the 74 species of crickets and katydids known from New England, New York, and New Jersey.
Each species has a page of useful text, paintings of both sexes, and drawings of identifying structures. Calling songs are on an accompanying CD.
More.
This beautiful, affordable book features 75 commonly heard North American species, comes with a CD of the songs, and has its own
web site. To see and hear any of the species, go to the site's Online Guide: Master Species List and click on the name of a species.
About the manual. Tips for using this web site to supplement the Field Guide's treatments of katydids and crickets. Listen to sample songs.
How to use SINA
Some features of SINA
Copyrights (ours and others)
Contributing to SINA
Recent contributions to SINA
Other acknowledgements
References
About Singing Insects of North America
How to use SINA.
Some features of SINA
Types of pages
Literature
Contributing to SINA
We hope you have found (or will find) Singing Insects of North America useful. We encourage you to help make it better. Here are three ways you might do so.
Contribute good photographs of living individuals for species for which SINA has none.
If you choose to do this, you will retain your copyrights. You need only give us the right to post the photograph(s) on SINA. You will be included in the Acknowledgements, and each of your photographs will have a credit line (as an example, see this sword-tail cricket picture). If you wish, we will add your name to those who allow their contributions to be used for other noncommercial, not-for-profit purposes. As explained in the copyright section, those wishing to use such items commercially still must get written permission from those who hold the copyrights.
Incidentally, we also welcome photographs of living individuals that are better than the ones currently posted on SINA.
If you are considering contributing photographs, contact us to work out the details: tjw@ufl.edu for crickets and katydids, temoore@umich.edu for cicadas.
Once the details of a contribution are agreed on, the photographs should be sent digitally, preferably as jpeg files attached to e-mail. The digital image should be as large as possible and still fit within a rectangle 1280 pixels by 960 pixels, in either landscape or portrait orientation.
Summary for those contributing photographs.
Contribute good recordings of the calling songs of species for which SINA has none.
If you choose to do this, you will retain your copyrights. You need only give us the right to post the recording(s) on SINA. You will be credited for each recording (as an example, see this field cricket page) and included in the Acknowledgements. If you wish, we will add your name to those who allow their recordings to be used for other noncommercial, not-for-profit purposes. As explained in the copyright section, those wishing to use contributed recordings commercially still must get written permission from those who hold the copyrights.
If you are considering contributing recordings, contact us to work out the details: tjw@ufl.edu for crickets and katydids, temoore@umich.edu for cicadas.
Once the details of a contribution are agreed on, the recordings can be sent digitally (e.g., as wav files attached to e-mail) or as analog tape recordings (which we will digitize and return).
Point out errors and suggest improvements.
For the parts of SINA for which we've completed the initial draft (see tables for crickets and katydids), we solicit your help in finding errors and suggesting ways that the content or interactivity can be improved.
Recent contributions to SINA
These persons and institutions have contributed content to SINA since its startup in the fall of 2000.
Photographs: Wayne P. Armstrong (waynesword.palomar.edu/wayne.htm), Ralph Arvesen (Spring Holler Ranch), Scott Bastian, Oliver M. Beckers (University of Missouri–Columbia), Heiko Bellman (Ulm, Germany), Ron Billings (Texas Forest Service), Sarah Braun (Florida State University), Rob Broekhuis (Rob's Plants), John L. Capinera (University of Florida), Dwayne Carnes, Jeff Cole, Chris Kline (Boyce Thompson Arboretum), David L. Cuthrell, Tony DiTerlizzi (http://www.diterlizzi.com/), Timothy G. Forrest (University of North Carolina Asheville), Lang Elliott (http://www.musicofnature.com/songsofinsects/), David H. Funk (Stroud Water Research Center), David A. Gray (California State University Northridge), Darryll Gwynne (Univerity of Toronto), Donald W. Hall (University of Florida), William F. Hall (Shaw Nature Reserve), Wil Hershberger (http://www.musicofnature.com/songsofinsects/), John Himmelman (Killingsworth,CT), Robert Jenson (Bob Jenson Photography), Dan L. Johnson (Agriculture Canada), James E. Lloyd (University of Florida), Patrick Lorch (Kent State University), Ron Lyons, Michael M. Luts, Steve A. Marshall (University of Guelph), Glenn K. Morris (University of Toronto), Steve Nanz, Piotr Naskrecki (Conservation International), Steven Paiero (Guelph University), Loren Padelford, Anne Patchell, Kenneth Prestwich (College of the Holy Cross), Lynette Schimm, Martha Schrami, Steve Schwartzman (Visual Delights, Austin, Texas), Leo Shapiro (University of California Berkeley), Kenneth C. Shaw (Iowa State University), Steve Shively (Kisatchie National Forest), Carl Strang (Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, Illinois), Jenny Szilagyi, James C. Trager (Shaw Nature Reserve), Ken Womble (Florida State University), P. Allen Woodliffe (Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources); Missouri Department of Conservation.
Recordings of songs: Evan Braswell (New Mexico State University), Lang Elliott (http://www.musicofnature.com/songsofinsects/), Timothy G. Forrest (University of North Carolina Asheville), David A. Gray (California State University Northridge), Glenn K. Morris (University of Toronto), David B. Weissman (California Academy of Sciences).
Distribution records: Jeff Cole (Los Angeles, CA), Wil Hershberger (http://www.musicofnature.com/songsofinsects/), John Himmelman (Killingworth, CT), Susan Greenlee (Missouri Department of Conservation), Vincent Marshall (University of Missouri-Columbia), John A. Stidham (Garland, TX), Carl Strang (Mayslake Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, IL).
General
Laboratory work: Susan A. Wineriter, Robert E. Love, John D. Spooner, Timothy G. Forrest, David L. Mays, James J. Whitesell, Phoebe Wilson, Paul M. Choate, Dong Ngo.
Museum curators: R. E. Woodruff and M. C. Thomas (FSCA), R. D. Alexander and I. J. Cantrall (UMMZ), Dan Otte (ANSP), Ashley B. Gurney (USNM).
Graphics: Susan A. Wineriter, Phoebe Wilson, Paul M. Choate, Eliza Karpook, Harry McVay.
SINA Web site development: Kelly Sweeney, Christopher Cleasby, Mary Rogers, Carrie Newsom.
Data entry into GrylTett.mdb database: Yi Sun, Kelly Sweeney, Cynthia Williams, Mary Rogers, Carrie Newsom.
References
About lists of references