Myrmecophilus acervorum
Ants Grille ( Myrmecophilus acervorum ) ♀
The ants Grille ( Myrmecophilus acervorum ) is a long horned grasshopper of the family of ant crickets ( Myrmecophilidae ). She lives in company with ants. The species is widespread in Europe. Due to their small size and secretive lifestyle lifestyle and dissemination are insufficiently investigated.
Features
Ants crickets are 2.5 to 4 millimeters long, making them the smallest of the Central European long horned crickets. You have an elliptically shaped, stocky body is dorsoventrally somewhat flattened. The base color of the body is light to dark brown, the edges of pro-and mesonotum of the thorax, however, are conspicuously colored lighter. Wings and auditory organs are not formed, the compound eyes are not fully developed. The antennae are relatively short and strong. The legs ( femora ) of the hind legs are greatly thickened. The spindle-shaped cerci are at the abdomen end at right angles from both sides. The ovipositor ( ovipositor ) is strongly built. Males are not yet proven. The species is distinctive in Central Europe.
Some authors have distinguished two forms, which differ in their size; they were considered to some extent even as a separate species. However, since the two forms occur side by side in the same ants nest and there are transitional forms between them, it can be assumed due to the lack taxonomically usable differences from the fact that such a distinction is not justified.
Occurrence
The exact distribution of animals is due to their secretive lifestyle poorly documented. The species occurs at least from the north of France via Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania to Russia before. In Southern Europe and Northern Africa more species of the genus Myrmecophilus occur which Myrmecophilus acervorum are very similar. The animals live in different habitats, such as parks and forests, on poor grass, gravel pits and at the edges of fields, but also in urban areas. They are found almost exclusively in ant nests and rarely away from this.
Way of life
The ants Grille lives associated with ants. Your host range is relatively wide, they could yet prove except for the Urameisen ( Ponerinae ) in all other genera Central European subfamilies, such as Myrmica, Tetramorium, Tapinoma, Formica or Lasius; the latter are especially preferred. It is believed that they parasitically feed on the brood, the eggs and also the inventories of ants; food intake, however, is known only from a few individual observations. Probably they are tolerated in the nests, which can adapt to the individual odor of a nest. In experiments, it was found that they are very cautious behave and avoid very quickly in contact with ants, when put in a foreign nest.
Reproduction
The animals have neither Stridulations nor hearing organs and make no sounds. It is assumed that the way in which, unlike the other members of the genus, exclusively propagated by parthenogenesis, as yet no male ants crickets were found. The eggs are laid singly, at least 24 hours between two oviposition lie. The development to the adult insect takes two years. One finds the imagos from April to October, probably they overwinter.
Threats and conservation
Since the distribution or habitat requirements and also the lifestyle of ants Grille are only insufficiently researched, a threat to the species can usually only be surmised. In Germany the species is therefore " to assume risk, but risk status ungekannt " in the Red List in Category "D" classified.