Saga pedo
In 3 days ~10% in a week ~30%
Saga pedo is a species of wingless bush cricket from the southern half of Europe and western and central Asia. This brown or green bush cricket typically has a total length, from the head to the tip of the ovipositor, of up to 10.5 cm (4.1 in), but exceptionally it may reach 12 cm (4.7 in), which makes it one of the largest European insects and one of the world's largest Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets and alike). The head-and-body alone typically is 5–7 cm (2.0–2.8 in) long in adults, but may reach up to 7.8 cm (3.1 in).
Colloquially known as the predatory bush cricket, or the spiked magician (due to the "enchanting" manner in which it waves its forelimbs as it approaches its prey), it is unusual due to its strictly carnivorous lifestyle and its parthenogenetic reproduction (only females exist and they breed by themselves).
Saga pedo is a predator that feeds mostly on other Orthoptera, but also frequently on mantises, especially the European mantis. On occasion it may feed on other types of insects and rarely even small lizards. S. pedo also has a tendency towards cannibalism, but adults do not appear to cannibalise other adults. Nymphs are predatory like the adults... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kiskunság National Park | 🇭🇺 Hungary | |
| 2 | Cévennes National Park | 🇫🇷 France | |
| 3 | Fertő-Hanság National Park | 🇭🇺 Hungary |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Madrid | 🇪🇸 Spain |
Rare
Under 5% of wildlife watchers report a Predatory Bush-Cricket sighting in Madrid on a given day, based on 16 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 218th most-seen of the 457 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 10%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
May to July
In those months about 10% of wildlife watchers report a Predatory Bush-Cricket in Madrid on a given day, against under 5% in August to April, the lowest months.
Between 1 and 4 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Predatory Bush-Cricket sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Madrid, in our data
Madrid is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Predatory Bush-Cricket sightings: under 5% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same family: Tettigoniidae
The closest relatives of the Predatory Bush-Cricket that you can see in Madrid (family Tettigoniidae, Katydids) are Great Green Bush-Cricket (about 10%), White-Faced Bush-Cricket (about 10%) and Brown-Spotted Bush-Cricket (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Predatory Bush-Cricket is recorded against all the insects logged in Madrid (16 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
