Southern Oak Bush-cricket

Meconema meridionale · Order: Orthoptera · Family: Tettigoniidae

Also called: Short-winged Drumming Katydid

No source yet on danger. We have no source yet on whether it bites, stings or damages anything.
Southern Oak Bush-cricket
Photo: Gilles San Martin, CC BY-SA

Adults are 14 to 17 mm long, not counting the long antennae. It lives in southern Europe and has been recorded in the UK since 2001. It feeds on the horse-chestnut leaf miner, helping control that pest.

Source: Wikipedia

Size

Adults measure about 14 to 17 mm in body length, not including antennae.

Source: Wikipedia

Lookalikes

Its range is more southerly than that of its close relative Meconema thalassinum.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it is found in the US

Recorded in 3 of 51 states and DC. Most records: Washington, Oregon, Illinois.

Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.

Source: GBIF

Status: introduced in United States. Source: iNaturalist

Months it is reported in the US

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Source: GBIF

More photos

Southern Oak Bush-cricket photo 3
Photo: Thorsten Denhard, CC BY-SA
Southern Oak Bush-cricket photo 4
Photo: Gilles San Martin, CC BY-SA
Southern Oak Bush-cricket photo 5
Photo: Fritz Geller-Grimm, CC BY-SA
Southern Oak Bush-cricket photo 6
Photo: unknown, CC0

Same family (Tettigoniidae)

Great Green Bush-cricketGreat Green Bush-cricketTettigonia viridissimaCan biteDark Bush-cricketDark Bush-cricketPholidoptera griseoapteraMediterranean KatydidMediterranean KatydidPhaneroptera nanaDamages trees, gardens or cropsFork-tailed Bush KatydidFork-tailed Bush KatydidScudderia furcataDamages trees, gardens or cropsSpeckled Bush-cricketSpeckled Bush-cricketLeptophyes punctatissimaRoesel's Bush-cricketRoesel's Bush-cricketRoeseliana roeselii

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meconema_meridionale

Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · Wikipedia

Text written 2026-10-22 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-22.

How this page works

This is one bug's fact sheet. The colored box at the top says whether it is dangerous. Sections below cover how to recognize it, whether it is a pest, and how to deal with it. The US map shows which states have records; tap a state to see other bugs there.

Every fact on Bug FAQ comes from a named source (university extension sites, government agencies, GBIF, iNaturalist, Wikipedia). The source is linked next to each section. If we have no source for something, we leave it out.