# Speckled Bush-cricket

*Leptophyes punctatissima*

Their song is almost entirely ultrasonic, pitched at about 40 kHz, making it nearly silent to human ears without a bat detector.

- **Taxonomy:** Animalia › Arthropoda › Insecta › Orthoptera › Tettigoniidae › Leptophyes
- **IUCN Red List status:** Least Concern
- **Population trend:** stable
- **Biome:** forest
- **Habitat:** Woodland margins, hedgerows, gardens, and dense shrubbery
- **Diet:** Herbivorous, feeding on a wide variety of leaves including bramble, nettle, and deciduous trees
- **Range:** Western Europe, Central Europe, Southern Scandinavia, British Isles
- **Size:** 10 - 18 mm in length, with females being slightly larger
- **Lifespan:** 1 year (overwinters as eggs, adults live for 3 to 4 months)
- **Active:** crepuscular
- **Threats:** Habitat loss from hedgerow removal and intensive pesticide use in urban and agricultural areas
- **Safe to approach?:** Harmless. You can safely observe this insect on garden shrubs and brambles. They do not bite or sting humans. If one lands on you, gently nudge it onto a nearby leaf.

## About

The speckled bush-cricket ( Leptophyes punctatissima ) is a flightless species of bush-cricket that occurs across most of Europe.

## Sources

- Plate: https://gaia-dex.com/species/2f3b37b6-75c0-42b5-8d32-f989f185b51b
- iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/131035
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptophyes punctatissima
- Conservation status: IUCN Red List category, as recorded by Gaia-Dex
- Photo: https://inaturalist-open-data.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/321997215/medium.jpg (Ludivine Lamare, CC-BY, via iNaturalist)

Habitat, diet, size and similar notes are AI-written summaries; check them against the linked sources before relying on them.