by Carl Strang
In late November I traveled to eastern North Carolina to visit my brother and his wife for Thanksgiving. They live in a community that surrounds a golf course, and the course abuts their back yard. Rain fell for a day after I arrived, and after it stopped, I could hear crickets chirping out on the golf course.
I made a recording:
These crickets were living beneath the close-mowed turf.
The songs resembled those of northern mole crickets (Neocurtilla hexadacyla), a familiar species in the Chicago region, but were noticeably higher pitched, 1.9 kHz compared to the northern mole cricket’s 1.7. Temperature plays a role here, though, as the recording was made at 17.5 degrees Celsius rather than the standard of 25C for the northern species’ measurement. At 25C the golf course crickets’ songs would be higher still. A review of possibilities in the Singing Insects of North America website pointed to the northern mole cricket and the southern mole cricket (Neoscapteriscus borellii). The latter’s calling song typically is described as a continuous trill at 2.7 kHz, but it also can produce a series of chirps, like those of the northern species but higher pitched.
Here is a recording of a northern mole cricket for comparison, clearly lower pitched despite a warmer 21C temperature:
These North Carolina crickets were singing in a lawn on a hill. Northern mole crickets live in marshes. Southern mole crickets also occur in wetlands, but their habitat range extends to moist lawns. Between the habitat and the higher-pitched songs, I concluded that the golf course dwellers are southern mole crickets.
Nature Inquiries 
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