Orthoptera of Andalusia

The great diversity of shapes, behaviors and sounds of photogenic and discreet insects.

• 200 species to discover
• Grasshoppers
• Crickets
• Bush-crickets
• Richness of endemisms over 1.000 masl

Orthoptera is a group of insects that include crickets, bush crickets and grasshoppers (including large migratory locusts), all of them characterized by their long hind legs that allow to jump through the vegetation. Juvenile stages resemble miniature and wingless adults.

107 species present in the area of Malaga and Cádiz have been counted: around 50 grasshoppers, 18 crickets and 35 chicharras, a quarter of which are endemic.

The grasshoppers of Andalusia

A couple of things

A group of terrestrial insects, very varied in their morphology, colors, diet and behaviour. Although they are generally large and photogenic, they often go unnoticed by their discrete behaviors: cryptic colors, nocturnal activities, arboricol species, elusive habits. Orthoptera, along with cicadas, are also characterized by acoustic communication, often audible to humans.

Pierre Jules Rambur (1801-1870) was the first entomologist to travel to Andalusia and was able to produce an extraordinary work far ahead of his time.

Remarkable species

Some of the most attractive species of this group of insects:

Several representatives belong to insects among the largest in Europe, authentic “giants”: Truxalis nasuta, Acinipe hesperica, Acanthacris ruficornis citrina. The latter species is limited in Europe to the Strait of Gibraltar.

The curious Spade-cricket of the genus Sciobia, represented locally by three species.

The curious stone grasshoppers of the Pamphagidae family, whose adults are large, wingless and cryptic in color, with up to five local species.

With nine known species, the area is one of the richest in Europe for the family Bradyporidae (formerly Ephippigeridae).