#ephippiger ephippiger

Saddle-Backed Bush Cricket, probably Ephippiger ephippiger cunii, male .

I came across this magnificent insect walking along a path through some pine woodland, with an under-story of heather and gorse, in Galicia, NW Spain. It is The Saddle-backed Bush-cricket. I was very excited to see one; it is absent from Britain and I had never seen one before. The closest relative we have in England, is…

European Saddleback Bushcricket  - Ephippiger ephippiger 

What you see in these photos are a male (top) and a female (bottom) of  Ephippiger ephippiger (Orthoptera - Tettigoniidae), a katydid species native to Europe and parts of Asia.

Like other bushcrickets this species is characterized by extremely long antennae, a pronotum resembling a saddle, thick abdomen and vestigial wings. Females have a highly developed ovipositor, the organ used for oviposition (as seen in the bottom picture).

In this species the mating behavior includes the so called nuptial gifts or nuptial feeding, in which males secrete from their accessory glands a gelatinous mass that does not contain sperm called a “spermatophylax”, attached to the spermatophore that contains the sperm. At the end of copulation, females consume the spermatophylax who then go on to eat the remainder of the spermatophore. 

References: [1] - [2]

BUSH CRICKET Ephippiger ephippiger ©d_smets

Species of this genus are mainly present in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain and Switzerland. This photo was shot in Belgium see more photos by Dirk Smets here

In this genus grasshoppers have very small wings, the pronotum resembles a saddle (the Latin name ephippium means 'saddle of horse '). The atrophied wings of Ephippiger species are unfit to flight and only used for the emission of sounds (stridulation)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephippiger

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