mole cricket

American  

noun

1. any of several burrowing crickets of the family Gryllotalpidae that have fossorial forelegs and that feed on the roots of plants.

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mole cricket British  

noun

1. any subterranean orthopterous insect of the family Gryllotalpidae, of Europe and North America, similar and related to crickets but having the first pair of legs specialized for digging

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Etymology

Origin of mole cricket

First recorded in 1705–15

Example Sentences

Water may be the most pliable surface insects have to jump from, Dr. Burrows said, and the most bizarre solution to the problem that he has found is that of the pygmy mole cricket.

From New York Times • Apr. 27, 2015

But the mole cricket really seems to have been patterned on the mole; either that, or both the four-legged and the six-legged moles were patterned after something else.

From The Adventures of a Grain of Dust by Hawksworth, Hallam

A mole cricket was chirring in the grass by the old doorstone.

From Judith of the Cumberlands by MacGowan, Alice

Field crickets inhabit the meadows, and subsist on roots, &c. as does another species, called the mole cricket.

From The History of Insects by Unknown

The abdomen of the female ends in a long slender ovipositor, which, however, is not exserted in the mole cricket.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 6 "Coucy-le-Château" to "Crocodile" by Various