Short Communication |
Corresponding author: Darin J. McNeil ( darin.j.mcneil@gmail.com ) Academic editor: Kevin Judge
© 2021 Darin J. McNeil, Bettina Erregger.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
McNeil DJ, Erregger B (2021) Description and photographs of cricket parental care in the wild. Journal of Orthoptera Research 30(1): 27-30. https://doi.org/10.3897/jor.30.52079
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Although certain forms of parental care are relatively widespread phenomena among insects, within Orthoptera, parental care is rare. Short-tailed burrowing crickets (Anurogryllus spp.) are among the few members of this order for which extensive parental care has been documented. However, accounts of parental care in Anurogryllus have been largely under laboratory conditions, and observations of this behavior in the wild are rare. Herein we present photographic observations from a mountain slope in Honduras where we discovered an active Anurogryllus brood chamber where an adult female was tending her brood. We present these results in the context of parental care in insects and compare our observations with those reported in past literature published on Anurogryllus crickets’ parental behavior.
behavior, eggs, Honduras, nymphs, Orthoptera, short-tailed cricket
Parental care, though widespread and important across many vertebrate taxa (
Among Orthoptera, crickets in the genus Anurogryllus Saussure, 1877 provide exceptional parental care to their young, with care frequently lasting for several weeks (
Our observations were made on 1 February 2017 at Rio Santiago Nature Reserve in San Francisco, Atlántida, Honduras (15.592223°N, -87.062514°E; 150 m) at 20:55 (Fig. 1). This region is heavily forested and dominated by contiguous broadleaf evergreen forest. On the evening when our observations were made, the temperature was approximately 19°C and the sky was overcast with light rain. Our observation occurred during a reptile/amphibian survey through the nature reserve during which we rolled stones and other objects to document resident wildlife. During this survey, we rolled a small stone with dimensions approximately 7.5 × 13 cm. This stone, which was sitting atop the soil within the forest path, was covering the brood chamber of an Anurogryllus cricket (Fig. 1). Female Anurogryllus are readily identified by their habitus in general (e.g., wing structure), but especially by their greatly reduced ovipositor, consistent with their common name: the short-tailed cricket (
The main brood chamber was ~57 mm long by ~23 mm wide (Fig. 2) and included a single entrance (~31 mm in length) facing west that allowed travel between the burrow and the soil surface. This brood chamber contained 1) an adult female Anurogryllus cricket, 2) three Anurogryllus nymphs (first instar), and 3) three Anurogryllus eggs. We did not observe Anurogryllus nymphs attached to the underside of the rock and thus believe this was the complete brood (three nymphs, three eggs). During our brief encounter with these crickets, including photographing them from several angles, the female was reluctant to expose the nymphs and made no attempt to abandon the brood. After documenting the event, the stone was carefully replaced, and the crickets were not harmed.
A. Photo of a female Anurogryllus cricket in a brood chamber beneath a stone on a forest path in Honduras; B. Drawing simplifying the structure of the brood chamber (scale bar approximated from cricket body size. The brood chamber, shown in light gray, was beneath the footprint of a small stone that was largely in direct contact with the soil (dark gray). The chamber contained an adult female Anurogryllus cricket as well as three eggs (open circles) and three first-instar nymphs (asterisks). Map data 2019 (c) Google.
Parental care is common in some insect orders (e.g., Hymenoptera) but remarkably rare in others (e.g., Orthoptera:
In many regards, the Anurogryllus sp. brood chamber observation was similar to those reported in the literature for A. muticus. For example,
The Anurogryllus from Honduras was unique from those previously reported for Anurogryllus in several ways: the Rio Santiago brood chamber contained far fewer nymphs (n = 3) and eggs (n = 3; Fig. 2) than those reported by others (up to 129 eggs or 89 nymphs/burrow;
Our observations of an Anurogryllus brood chamber provide interesting insights into the parental care behaviors present within Orthoptera. Although some aspects of Anurogryllus breeding behavior were confirmed in the wild by our record, others (e.g., brood size, provisioning behavior, etc.) appear to vary among regions, species, and/or study context (e.g., lab vs. field). Given this, several important limitations of our observation should be kept in mind. First, the brood chamber we observed represents a single observation; how typical any components of this observation are in the broader context of the life history of Anurogryllus would require a much more thorough examination. Moreover, the species identity of the Anurogryllus brood we observed here remains unknown—species-specific life history differences may explain some of the differences we report here as compared to laboratory observations. Still, the different life history pattern we observed in Honduras in contrast to those observed in the lab highlights the need to assess species behavior across multiple contexts, including both in a lab setting and the wild.
We are grateful to L. Symes (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) for helpful edits on early drafts of this manuscript. We appreciate the field support in Honduras from M. L. Kazour (Utica College) and R. E. Bennett (Cornell University). Our manuscript was substantially improved by the comments of K. Judge and one anonymous reviewer. We also thank the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Ivy Fellowship for supporting our expedition to Honduras during which these observations were serendipitously made.