The Emma field cricket is a big, glossy, dark-brown cricket of Japan, Korea, and China, and it doesn't live in the wild in the United States. Its name comes from Enma, the fierce judge of the underworld in Japanese Buddhism, because the pale "eyebrows" on its face look like a scowl. Males sing a clear, trilling song on late-summer and fall nights.
Appearance
- Appearance
- About 1–1¼ in (26–32 mm) long, uniformly glossy blackish brown, with a rounded head and a pale band over each eye. Females carry a long, needle-like .
- Voice
- Males rub their forewings together to make a rolling "koro-koro-ree" chirp. They use different songs to call females, court, and warn off rival males.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- grasslands
- farm fields
- riverbanks
- Range
- East Asia: most of Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and China, where it lives mainly north of the Yangtze River. It is not known to live in the wild in North America.
- Preferred conditions
- It hides by day under grass, dead leaves, or in shallow hollows in the ground, and wanders at night. It sometimes flies to lights.
Behavior
- Diet
- An omnivore that eats plants, seeds, and dead small animals.
- Overwintering
- Eggs laid in the soil survive the winter and hatch in late spring; adults die in late fall.
Life cycle
- Reproduction
- One generation a year. Young crickets look like small wingless adults and molt as they grow; there is no pupa.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed
More species to explore
Record what you meet and build your own collection
Your photos are kept with their date and place, and you can fill regional albums one species at a time.