Mole cricket  (Gryllotalpa gryllotalpa)

This is our largest native orthopteran and one of our most impressive and unusual looking insects. The scientific name derives from the Latin 'gryllus' meaning cricket and 'talpa', mole, and refers to its similarity to a mole in both looks and subterranean habits. The body is brown in colour and covered with fine velvety hairs, and the forelegs are greatly modified for digging. Only the adult stages are winged, and flight is said to be clumsy, directionless and only performed on rare occasions at night. Males can be distinguished from the females by the open vein area in the forewing known as the 'harp', females lack the external ovipositor of other crickets.