The Cumberland cave cricket aggregates into groups or clusters within cave wall recesses and is considered vital to cave community ecosystems, noted as a keystone species.[5]
Features and reproduction
The crickets aggregate to minimize dehydration using specialized pheromones that reduce mobility on contact, acting as an anti-predator defense tactic from cave spiders. It has been found to have a co-occurrence relationship with the cave orb weaver spider Meta ovalis. Some populations of H. cumberlandicus are parthenogenic.[6]
Identification
This cricket has very long legs, and a dark body. Its body is broken into scale sections. The antennae are also longer than that of an average camel cricket.[7]
^Hobbs III, HH (1992). Hackney, CT; Adams, SM; Martin, WM (eds.). "Caves and Springs". Biodiversity of the Southeastern United States: Aquatic Communities: 59–131.