page_title: Mole cricket
section_title: Extinct genera
hierarchical_section_title: Mole cricket / Taxonomy and phylogeny / Extinct genera
caption_attribution_description: Safari Tent N°27, Tamboti Tented Camp, Kruger NP, SOUTH AFRICA
context_page_description: Mole crickets are members of the insect family Gryllotalpidae, in the order Orthoptera. Mole crickets are cylindrical-bodied insects about 3–5 cm long as adults, with small eyes and shovel-like fore limbs highly developed for burrowing. They are present in many parts of the world and where they have arrived in new regions, may become agricultural pests.
  Mole crickets have three life stages, eggs, nymphs, and adults. Most of their lives in these stages are spent under ground, but adults have wings and disperse in the breeding season. They vary in their diet; some species are herbivores, mainly feeding on roots; others are omnivores, including worms and grubs in their diet, while a few are largely predatory. Male mole crickets have an exceptionally loud song; they sing from a burrow that opens out into the air in the shape of an exponential horn. The song is an almost pure tone, modulated into chirps. It is used to attract females, either for mating, or for indicating favourable habitats for them to lay their eggs.
  In Zambia, mole crickets are thought to bring good fortune, while in Latin America, they are said to predict rain.
context_section_description: †Archaeogryllotalpoides
  †Cratotetraspinus
  †Marchandia
  †Palaeoscapteriscops
  †Tresdigitus rectanguli Xu, Fang & Wang, 2020
  
  Mole cricket fossils are rare. A stem group fossil, Cratotetraspinus, is known from the Lower Cretaceous of Brazil. Two specimens of Marchandia magnifica in amber have been found in the Lower Cretaceous of Charente-Maritime in France. They are somewhat more abundant in the Tertiary amber of the Baltic and Dominican regions; impressions are found in Europe and the American Green River Formation.
caption: Pygmy mole crickets are members of the suborder Caelifera.
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