In news- Jayanti has become the twelfth subgenus, or species, of cricket identified under the genus Arachnomimus Saussure, 1897.
More about the insect-
- It was found in the Kurra caves of Chhattisgarh in April 2021 by a team of zoologists of Panjab University, Chandigarh.
- The new subgenus was named Jayanti after Professor Jayant Biswas, one of the leading cave explorers in the country, who assisted the team.
- Arachnomimus is the genus name given by Swiss Entomologist Henri Louis Frédéric de Saussure in 1878 to crickets that resembled spiders.
- The word Arachnomimus is derived from two Ancient Greek words arakhne means “spider” and mimos, means “imitator, actor”.
- The crickets of this group are commonly called spider crickets because of their smaller body size and long legs.
- The newly discovered subgenus, Indimimus, is different from the two subgenera, Arachnomimus and Euarachnomimus because of the male genitalia structure.
- Insects have a lock-and-key model genitalia structure which is unique to each subgenus.
- Male crickets produce loud sounds by rubbing their wings against each other to attract females.
- The females listen to these calls using ears located on their legs and approach the males for mating and reproduction.
- But males of the new Jayanti subgenus cannot produce sound and their females don’t have ears.
- They may communicate by beating their abdomen or any other body part on the cave walls.
- Further studies on their skills of vibrational communication may help in designing hearing aids for humans which can capture quietest signals and amplify to an audible hearing range.
- Though the distribution of these species is very wide, ranging from Brazil to Malaysia, in India, the diversity of spider crickets is still unexplored.
Source: Indian Express
