ABSTRACT
The aquatic and semi-aquatic mole crickets move rapidly through the tunnels and are not easy to locate by observing movements of the elevated sediments covering the tops of the tunnels. Crickets were domesticated in China centuries ago, and cricket fighting has been at the core of various gambling enterprises. Members of the family Stenopelmatidae, called wetas, number about 70 species that appear to be large terrestrial crickets. When threatened by an approaching predator that consumes large insects, this weta simply jumps into the water of a nearby stream and sinks quickly to the bottom. It finds an underwater hiding place, where it remains motionless until the danger has departed from the vicinity of the stream. The species is Cornops aquaticum, which feeds on the leaves of certain aquatic plants and travels from one group of the plants to another either by flying or by swimming underwater.
