Courtilière

See also: Mole (homonymy)

The courtilière or mole cricket is a large digger Insecte, about the Orthoptère S, which causes damage on the young people Plante S of which it divides the root.

The French name of courtilière derives from courtil , small garden as former French.

Description

The adult insect measures envion 5 cm length. The body massive, robust, is duveteux, brown top, more clearly, reddish, below. The head carries powerful crushing oral parts, two long antennas and two black eyes. The Prothorax, globulous is thick and resistant. The forefeet, strong, are adapted to digging. The wings developed, transparent, exceed the abdomen at rest. They make it possible the insect to fly, in spite of its particular conformation. The abdomen, formed of 10 segments, carries two appendices, or Cerque S, frayed. The rather short élytre S have only one protective role.

Biology

Spread in Europe, Western Asia and North Africa, the courtillière lives in the ground S pieces of furniture, light and fresh: gardens, seedbeds, meadows. She has a food mode Omnivore, attacking the root S and Tubercule S, but also devouring worms of ground and various Larve S of the ground.

Its night lifestyle makes it very discrete.

The cycle of reproduction lasts two years. The female lays 200 to 300 eggs in a deep gallery (20 to 40 cm). The young people, who have the same aspect that the adults, but do not have wings, undergo two driven before the Hibernation. About April, the year following, the larvae take again their activity and still become adult after three moults. The adults reproduce next spring.

Food mode

The courtilières are omnivorous, nourishing larvae, of worms, roots and grass.

Means of fight

  • average mechanics: to locate and destroy the layings;
  • average chemical:
    • use of poisoned soft foods;
    • disinfection of the ground before setting in culture.
For the individual gardens, to put in the hole some oil drops of kitchen, or gas oil, the insect leaves at the day and dies almost immediately.

The courtilière seems to be herself rarefied in the gardens of many areas.

Predatory natural

The predatory commun runs of the courtilières amount among the birds, rats, foxes. To the United States, one can add to this list the skunk, armadillos, raccoons.

In Asia, they are sometimes used fries as food (see Entomophagie), and are rather regarded as delicious.

External references

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