Unusual armoured ground cricket at Kulala
16 Jun 2008
Sighting: Unusual armoured ground cricket at Kulala
Location: Little Kulala, Sossusvlei, Namibia
Observers: Jennifer Dickinson & Johan Fourie
Those who have travelled to southern Africa over the past summer and have included southern Namibia and the northern Kruger National Park in South Africa as part of their trip will be very familiar with the armoured ground cricket - a rather large (40-50mm), grotesque and prehistoric looking insect.
In favourable seasons these crickets enjoy a population explosion as the eggs that have lain dormant in the soil over the past eight or nine months hatch into life. At times like these after good rainfall seasons the crickets are nothing less than abundant and are a significant source of food for a variety of predators, most often attracting large congregations of storks and eagles to their irruptions, but also being preyed upon by a myriad other bird and mammal species. They are cannibalistic and in fact even feed off dead members of their own species.
At Little Kulala, while the end of summer has signalled a decrease in cricket numbers, we are still encountering hundreds of these creatures. Recently we were surprised to find an unusually coloured individual as we went through our daily clearing of the decking and room areas of these common creatures.
The normal cricket is coloured a mix of purple, deep red and sombre browns and is generally pretty cryptic. This individual however seems to have had the pigment washed or bleached out of the carapace and instead is an un-pigmented worn ivory colour.
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