Discovery-it Community Friends, How are you all!
I spend most of my free time tending to my orchard and pond plants. While closely observing the plants, I often come across some amazing insects. Today I am going to share with you macro photography that taught me a great lesson in insect identification.
Yesterday, while walking through the thick grass near my garden, a bright orange color suddenly caught my eye. As I got closer, I saw a small, delicate insect sitting on a green leaf. Its bright orange body looked incredibly beautiful against the green leaves. I quickly took some macro photos of it.
But when I tried to identify this insect using iNaturalist and Google Lens, I ran into a big conundrum. The search results kept showing me images of adult "Sword-tail crickets," which are usually brown or black in color and have full wings on their backs. Mine was bright orange and had no wings. Then, after a little more digging, I realized two great things.
First, it's a nymph. In many insects, the juveniles look completely different from the adults. They don't have wings and are often brightly colored, which changes as they grow and molt.
Second, the apps were showing me the names of North American species because there's not much data online for our Asian juveniles, which was confusing the algorithm. So scientifically, it's most accurate to identify it to the genus level.
For the convenience of everyone, I have arranged the detailed information of this beautiful insect below:
Common name
Sword-tail cricket nymph or bush cricket nymph.
Scientific name
Anaxipha sp. (nymph stage). Since it is a juvenile, it is impossible to determine its exact species without seeing the adult form.
Family:
Trigonidiidae (this family is known for its small and fragile-looking crickets).
Genus:
Anaxipha.
Size and appearance:
It is extremely small, only a few millimeters long. Its most striking features are its incredibly long and slender proboscis (which is longer than its entire body), and its thick and powerful hind legs, which are designed for jumping. Since it is a juvenile, only small wing buds are visible on its back instead of full wings.
Habitat:
These crickets prefer damp and green environments. They are mainly found hiding behind tall grasses, shrubs and broad leaves of garden plants.
Diet:
They are generally omnivorous. In the garden, they feed on soft parts of plants, rotten leaves and occasionally small aphids or other small insects.
Reproduction and life cycle:
They undergo incomplete metamorphosis. Adult females lay eggs on tree trunks. The hatched nymphs look like small wingless adults and molt several times before gaining their final wings.
Benefits and disadvantages:
They are very beneficial from an ecological point of view. They serve as a great food source for garden birds, frogs and large beneficial spiders. Although they occasionally make small holes in the leaves of plants, their damage is so insignificant that they are never considered a harmful insect or pest in agriculture.
I learned about them from various sites including iNaturalist, Wikipedia and Google.
(All posts are written in Bengali and translated into English using Google Translate.)
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| Camera Used | Samsung SM-G973F |
|---|---|
| F-Stop | F2.4 |
| ISO speed | ISO |
| Focal length | 26mm |
| Flash | No |
| Editing app | MIX |
| Photography | (Anaxipha sp.) |
| Photographer |  |
| Location | Purulia, Natore, Bangladesh |