Talk:Jerusalem cricket

A fact from Jerusalem cricket appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 April 2004. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the Jerusalem cricket is sometimes called "the old bald-headed man"?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2004/April.

Wikipedia

They exist is south central Romania

The article says they're native to the Americas, yet my romanian grandfather uses them as fishbait. Why the misinformation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:1811:3516:DB00:936:8A4C:4A81:3697 (talk) 17:33, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's not misinformation. The insects your refer to in Romania are similar in appearance, but belong to a different family. Dyanega (talk) 16:50, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sound production?

it is unable to produce a sound? Hmm... I saw one the other day and, when I gently poked it to see if it was alive or not, it scurried a few feet, making what definitely sounded like a hissing sound.

Is it possible that the crying sound they produce is caused by them beating their abdomen at a high frequency on some surfaces? Also isn't it a bit contradictory to say they have 'songs' played on the ground and not be able to hear them? Maybe they feel the vibrations on the ground? (67.151.201.82 18:27, 28 March 2007 (UTC))[reply]

I stand corrected - citations given for sound production

Thanks for prodding me into doing a little more searching. The 2001 book was one I had never seen. Dyanega 21:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"True" bugs, crickets

I think the statements about Jerusalem crickets not being true crickets or bugs are silly and not very informative. I realize that entomologists have attached the common name cricket to Gryllidae and bug to Hemiptera, but bug and cricket are not scientific names, they are common names. Bug is used to refer to all manner of arthropods, as well as bacteria and, on occasion, other phyla of invertebrates. I assume the word predates its application to Hemiptera, and trying to restrict its usage to Hemiptera now is absurd. The article would be more concise and effective if it talked about what Jerusalem crickets are instead of all the things they are not. Justinleif 02:13, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The idea is precisely the opposite, I assure you - telling people that these are not crickets IS very informative - that sort of thing is the essence of BEING informative, just like informing people that crocodiles and alligators are NOT lizards, or that gorillas and chimpanzees are NOT monkeys. There's nothing silly about using names correctly. The common name for one group is "crickets" and the common name for this group is "Jerusalem crickets". The common name for Hemiptera is "true bugs", not "bugs". "Bug", as you note, is used for many different things - the term "true bug" is NOT used for anything else, and it is not just a recent change - the common name "true bug" has been in use for more than a century. Dyanega 23:14, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The text as written does not convey a phylogenetic statement, it conveys a semantic one. A phylogenetic statement would be: "Jerusalem crickets are a distinct lineage within the Orthoptera, separate from crickets (eg Gryillidae)." If you accept that only the term "true bug" applies to the Hemiptera, and not "bug", then there is no need to mention that the Jerusalem crickets are not Hemiptera. People call Stenoplamtidae "potato bugs", not "potato true bugs".Justinleif 00:24, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough point. MXVN (talk) 22:17, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This kind of cricket in Jerusalem,(Jerusalem cricket) is a new kind of species. Like a theorist named Charles Darwin, well, he studied different kinds of animals and compared their blood. He took the blood of another animal to another animal. And that creates a new species of an animal. And so, this theorist came up with the word "breed". Maybe that was how a Jerusalem cricket was created.((User:SaralynnLaveai)) 03:30, 26 November 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.10.60.1 (talk)

Reference to weta

The paragraph about weta seems inaccurate, as the weta and king crickets usually are placed in Anostostomatidae nowadays. --129.177.48.47 (talk) 15:13, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Orthography

Hi... I was trying to write some lines about this insect @ nv-wiki and came across the outdated 1852-orthography that was cited. I added modern orthography, so people will be able to decipher it. Also, the last entry is in Hopi, not Navajo. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 03:13, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Coachella Valley Jerusalem Cricket

It seems probable that Stenopelmatus cahuilaensis is correct. See

OSF "Note mispelling"
US FWS
IUCN

The ITIS entry is sourced to earlier versions or the OSF list.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:59, 3 August 2014 (UTC).

I see the problem. There are two species, both described by Tinkham in 1968. One is coahuilensis (from Coahuila), and the other is cahuilaensis (from Coachella). You originally spelled it as "cahuilensis" so I assumed you had meant the former species ([1]), and edited accordingly. I'll add the other species to the list. Dyanega (talk) 16:47, 4 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

- Actually, I guess I have to take that back. The problem is that the world's most definitive resource for orthopteran names MISSPELLED the name of this species when it came out in 2000, and the misspelled name propagated through all the major indexes, including ITIS. That explains why I had it in my database, as well. That's a major goof-up. I';; remove the "coahuilensis" name from the page, accordingly. Sheesh. Dyanega (talk) 17:00, 4 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - Yes, that's what I thought had happened. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:38, 4 August 2014 (UTC).

- - - As a final note before I move on, looking through the most recent incarnation of the Orthoptera Species File, I note that Stenopelmatus is not the only genus of Jerusalem Crickets; I have created a stand-alone page for Stenopelmatidae to reflect this, but we now have to figure out a way to re-write the existing article to reflect these other genera. I don't have time now, but my suggestion (in keeping with the very last edit I just made) is to change the taxobox for this page to cover specifically the subfamily Stenopelmatinae, which comprises Stenopelmatus, Stenopelmatopterus, Ammopelmatus, and Viscainopelmatus - all of which are referred to as Jerusalem crickets. That would mean the species list for Stenopelmatus would go to a new, separate Stenopelmatus article, rather than having Stenopelmatus as a redirect. Most of the text of this page could be left unchanged, except those parts that implied that there was only a single genus of JCs. It would be great if there were photos of species from one or more of the other genera. Dyanega (talk) 19:53, 4 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      - Sounds like a good plan. The Tinkham paper provides a key, I forget how wide ranging the key is. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:16, 6 August 2014 (UTC).

constituency of Stenopelmatinae is being revised

A recent paper produced a phylogeny of the Stenopelmatidae, and showed that the genera Ammopelmatus, Stenopelmatopterus, and Viscainopelmatus all nested within a paraphyletic Stenopelmatus (Vandergast, AG, Weissman, DB, Wood, DA, Rentz, DCF, Bazelet, CS, Ueshima, N (2017) Tackling an intractable problem: Can greater taxon sampling help resolve relationships within the Stenopelmatoidea (Orthoptera: Ensifera)? Zootaxa 4291: 1-33 [2]). While this paper did not formally synonymize these genera, the reclassification is implied, and should certainly be forthcoming. Given that these authors did not expressly sink these genera yet, I have not yet moved the affected species here to be included in Stenopelmatus, but at that point it will be the only genus left in the subfamily, so I have boldfaced the subfamily name here. Dyanega (talk) 23:01, 5 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Title

From the lede: Despite their common names, these insects are neither true crickets, nor true bugs, nor are they native to Jerusalem."

Which may explain why I've never in my life heard them called "Jerusalem crickets" anywhere in the world, but always "potato bugs".

Maybe the article should be titled "Potato bugs"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.253 (talk) 01:02, 29 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]