Common Trumpeter - Oecanthus pellucens Scop.
The trumpeter is a relative of crickets and grasshoppers. Its body is narrow and elongated; it can be greenish-yellow, yellow, or light brown, with no black stripe on the underside. The body length of males is 10.1—12.8 mm, and for females, it is 11.3—13.8 mm. The head is narrower than the pronotum, usually with two sharp narrow black spots behind the eyes. The length of the pronotum in males is 2.1—2.3 mm, and in females, it is 2.2—2.4 mm; its length exceeds the width at the rear edge by 1.1—1.2 times. The forewings of males are 9—11.2 mm long, and for females, they are 9.2—11 mm; in males, they cover the abdomen but do not reach or barely extend beyond the tips of the hind femora. The wings are hidden under the forewings or protrude from under them by 0.9-1.2 mm in males and by 1.5-1.7 mm in females. The legs are long and thin, with the front legs adapted for running. The hind femora are long (7.5—8.4 mm in males and 7.7—8.2 mm in females), becoming very thin towards the tip. There are large spines on the hind tibiae. The ovipositor is long (6.3—7.5 mm), straight, and thin; it is brown with a black tip.
It inhabits grassy cenoses, shrubs, and forests in areas with sparse tree stands.
They have a needle-like ovipositor, which these insects use to drill holes in the stems and branches of plants to lay their eggs, causing them to dry out. Egg-laying is often found in large quantities in the stems of wormwood (Artemisia), yarrow (Achillea), tansy (Tanacetum), and fleabane (Erigeron). It overwinters in the egg stage.
It is omnivorous. The larvae and adults damage many cultivated plants by eating holes in the leaves or gnawing through their main veins. They damage potatoes, eggplants, tobacco, and other nightshades, castor beans, cotton, medicinal marshmallow, and other mallows, grapes, domestic and wild apples, pears, plums, sloe, cherries, sweet cherries, apricots, peaches, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, hawthorn, rose hips, hazelnuts, red and black currants, gooseberries, and other fruit crops, as well as alfalfa, vetch, and astragalus. They also feed on small arthropods, especially aphids.
Few people notice them in the grass, but many have heard their concerts. The name given to these insects by the people is not accidental: in the evening, they emerge from their shelters and begin to "sing" — rubbing one wing against another, it seems as if silver trumpets are sounding. And when there are about a hundred of them, it turns into an orchestra. It is said that in some countries, even gramophone records have been released featuring the songs of these six-legged musicians. The records are very popular among nature lovers, just like recordings of birdsong. The Japanese are very great admirers of their singing. At the end of summer, they sometimes hold something like festivals for listening to the specific singing of trumpeters.
Distribution: Northern Tien Shan, territory of the Issyk-Kul basin, the Pre-Fergana regions of Kyrgyzstan.
Insects of Kyrgyzstan
