I was really happy to find one in the garden yesterday and was really surprised by that feature at the bottom end. It is fascinating isn’t it? And I found out that it is a female and that interesting upward curving feature is an ovipositor. By the name of it I guess this helps the female to lay her eggs under tree barks and into plant stems in the end of the summer, where the eggs will overwinter and the nymphs will emerge in late spring.
This bush cricket is flightless and apparently very common in the south of England and in Wales but because of the hidden lifestyle in the undergrowth and in hedgerows it is not easily spotted. And they are active at night and at dusk which makes them hard to find too.
Sorry that the pictures focus on the ovipositor but it is the first time I have seen a cricket with such an interesting tool.
