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Name of extremely loud insect?


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Sid,

 

Its easy to bag the guy for his fascination with bugs, but I admire the fact that he has gone to so much trouble to photograph and record the wildlife (well, a subsection) around him. So many of the websites I visit are just tired rehashes of the SOS (same old shite) for a given subject, be it geek-oriented or cars. They often contain the same inaccuracies, endlessly repeated, and verbatim copies of other peoples efforts.

 

This gentleman has taken his enthusiasm, creativity and energy and transferred it to an audiovisual medium - where I come from, thats called 'art' :)

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Hi Artiew,

 

Thanks for the links.

I am actually quite fond of interesting insects and Thailand sure has its part of those.

Sure enjoyed those soundfiles and I sure enjoyed that I for once was able to turn off the cikada "song".

When I lived in Sakon I had the pleasure of listening to their performance every night. It is indeed incredible how loud they are, but after a while (took me like 6 months) I actually didn`t really hear them any more or mayby developed some kind of a "filter". It is either that or you go bananas.

 

By the way these soundfiles also confirmed to me that the insect I was referring to is definitely not a cikada, nor a cricket or a grasshopper.

 

mountain cicadas seem to have developed a slightly less frightening call than their lowland relatives

 

Mayby they are just a little low on oxygen. ::

 

Cheers

Hua Nguu

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Artiew

 

I sent an email aking about this insect to the the webmaster of thaibugs.com John Moore, and he was kind enough to answer.

Below is a copy of his answer:

 

He mentions the word "gastropod", it is not in my dictionary, do you have any idea what kind of critter that is?

 

Cheers

Hua Nguu

 

 

 

 

Michael,

 

I think what you?re referring to is a sound that drives country people here crazy. You hear it mainly at night though I?ve heard it early evening as well. It?s apparently a form of gastropod and, as far as I can ascertain, one with a shell like a garden snail. Next time I hear on I?ll try and catch it to make sure.

 

Regards

 

John Moore

 

 

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As Kamui already said Gastropods include snails as well as slugs on land.

 

I'm more familliar with there water born cousins clams, oysters, conch, welks, octopus, squid, etc.

 

I've heard that some can make noise but have never actually heard the noise itself.

 

Here's a weird article on Thailand's snails from the BKK Post:

 

NATURE

 

Flesh-eating snails still mysterious

 

 

This carnivorous slug is overpowering a snail whose shell offers no protection against the predator.

Tiny teeth allow gastropod hunters to feast on their cousins

 

Story by PONGPET MEKLOY

 

With eyes on stalks and squishy bodies supported by one flat foot, snails and slugs can be splendid sources of inspiration for cartoonists designing a monster. But in the real world, can these fangless, non-poisonous, slow-moving creatures actually harm anyone?

 

The answer is: yes, especially if you're an earthworm.

 

The farmers' and gardeners' nightmare, land gastropods are notorious for their ability to devour not just decaying plant matter but also parts of living plants.

 

Snails and slugs are close relatives, and their major difference is merely that the first group have shells while the latter do not.

 

These nocturnal creatures roam around through the undulating movements of their long muscular foot, leaving slimy, silvery trails behind them.

 

Unlike people and most vertebrates, gastropods do not have mandibles. Instead, each is equipped with a radula, a rasp tongue full of tiny teeth (see pictures), that enables them to cut and grind food.

 

 

To the untrained eye, a carnivorous gastropod like this fellow is no different to its herbivorous cousins.

But not all snails and slugs are herbivorous. Despite lacking speed and other qualities of a conventional predator, some snails and slugs hunt, too.

 

Among the Kingdom's 82 recorded genera of land gastropods, at least two are carnivorous: the genus Atopos and the genus Steptaxis. The Atopos in Thailand consists of around 20 species of slugs, and the Steptaxis includes about 30 snail species.

 

These meat-eaters prey not only on earthworms, but also insect larvae, and even their own kind. And when they kill ... it's not a pretty sight.

 

The feeding behaviour of Atopos slugs has been observed at Chulalongkorn University's Department of Biology. When an aquatic snail is put in the same container as a 15-centimetre-long Atopos, the carnivorous slug gradually heads towards its prey, which, sensing the oncoming danger, shrinks inside its shell and tightly shuts the ``operculum'', the door to the shell entrance.

 

 

 

Magnified photos of the radulae, the feeding organ, of a herbivorous slug (above) and a carnivorous slug (below). The radula of the meat-eater consists of sharp, sword-like teeth.

But that can only buy the snail a little time. Before long, the hungry predator manages to use its strong muscular foot to push the door open, squeeze its head inside and feast on the hapless prey.

 

Within an hour, the Atopos finishes off a snail that was about the same size as itself. Nothing but an immaculately clean shell is left. (This particular feat is admired by many scientists who find cleaning the shells of dead snails a time-consuming task that requires the use of sodium hydroxide, lots of running water and lots of brushing.)

 

If the prey is a snail, nothing is left at the scene but mucus. In the case of earthworms, all that remains are blood stains.

 

A major difference between carnivorous gastropods and their herbivorous cousins is the feeding organ. The radula of carnivorous species consists of rows of microscopic sword-like teeth designed for cutting fresh meat (see picture). Also, the digestive systems of the meat-eating species probably contain more protein-digesting enzymes than those of herbivorous ones.

 

The fact is, not much has been studied about Thailand's carnivorous land gastropods. Species of both known carnivorous genera _ the Atopos and the Steptaxis_ are still unidentified, although a number of specimens have been collected.

 

As for their behaviour in the wild, scientists are still in the dark.

 

However, one thing they're sure of is the creatures' potential for the biological control of pesky slugs and snails. But safe and effective usage of these slimy carnivores, as well as their conservation, will not be possible until we know enough about them.

 

 

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OK, so we've got flesh-eating slugs that make an horrendous noise all night long - I can feel a horror movie coming on ! Dont worry - I'll mention you all in the credits and briefly in my Oscar's acceptance speech.

 

Hopefully, the Australian government wont get wind of these slugs - they'll introduce them to control snail populations in lettuce farms and we'll have another cane toad on our hands - at least the toads are reasonably quiet at night ! Great excuse for every household to keep at least one golf club, too.

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