Striped Crickets

At least two species of this genus occur in North America: an eastern species, here called Miogryllus saussurei, and a southwestern species, Miogryllus lineatus.

North American Miogryllus are highly variable and inadequately studied. The genus was last revised by Hebard in 1915, the same year that he and Rehn (R & H 1915) concluded that all New World Gryllus belonged to a single, "exceedingly plastic" species. In his revision, Hebard declared that Miogryllus verticalis, a species described by Serville in 1839 from French Guiana, was distributed from Argentina to New Jersey. If Hebard was correct, the populations here called M. saussurei should be called M. verticalis instead, because the latter name is older. However, it seems likely that Hebard was not correct, because few if any New World crickets have such a wide distribution. The example that Hebard gave was Neocurtilla hexadactyla, but as discussed under that species, it may be native only to North America. The other example that Hebard might have cited (the sole New World Gryllus species he recognized) has since proved to be a complex of many species. Furthermore, Hebard did not examine the holotype of M. verticalis, but noted that it was long-winged. No long-winged individuals are known for what is here called M. saussurei. Of the 107 adult specimens that Hebard placed in M. verticalis, only three were macropterous: two females from Vera Cruz, Mexico, and a male from Para, Brazil.

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Miogryllus is a genus of crickets in the subfamily Gryllinae ("field crickets"), in the family Gryllidae ("true crickets") and tribe Gryllini. Members of the genus Miogryllus are called striped crickets, also lesser field crickets. There are two North American species of Miogryllus, Miogryllus lineatus, the western striped cricket, and Miogryllus saussurei, the eastern striped cricket.