Giant burrowing cricket, Raaskriek
Very noisy at night.
Approx 40mm long.
Comments
Comments and questions
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- Thanks for the link to Piotr's blog entry, Johan. Great stuff, as always. This time with sound track.
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- The genus Brachytrupes consists of seven species showing a kind of Afrotropical/Mediterranean disjunction. (The odd one out is Brachytrupes megacephalus). Of these seven species, three occur in southern Africa.
Ignore the maps on OSF!
How do we know that this one is B. membranaceus?.
- In my copy of PGW2004, photo 86.5 allegedly illustrates Brachytrupes membranaceus. The accompanying description is without information and the text claims that this is the only species in the genus. Did PGW make a booboo here and place the wrong photo? I cannot reconcile their picture with the one in this observation or with those in the two sites linked from this observation.
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Beetledude, SANC
Brachytrupes in sA
According to http://oldsite.biodiversity.org.na/scripts/taxondisplay.php?taxonlevel=G... there are three species of Brachytrupes, i.e.
Brachytrupes membranaceus (Drury 1773)
Brachytrupes politus (Bolivar 1890)
Brachytrupes testaceus (Karny 1910)
in Namibia.
Furthermore it seem likely that Brachytrupes calaharicus, which is found in Botswana (Kalahari) will also occur in Namibia.
I do not know what sounds the different species make, but the guy on Kyffhauser sounded a lot like that on the recording by Piotr. Very loud.
Alex Dreyer
www.kyffhauser.co.za
Seems like these guys needs
Seems like these guys needs some closer attention. I thought this is the only species in the genus, but apparently not!
Johan Pretorius
More
More here:
http://thesmallermajority.com/2013/03/23/
Johan Pretorius