The raspy crickets of the family Gryllacrididae look like a cross between a cricket and a katydid, and Camptonotus is a fine example. Medium-sized and mostly yellowish-brown (a few are pale green), it has antennae several times its body length and a blunt, rounded vertex.
Here is the quiet part: the males of this genus lack stridulatory organs. While other crickets sing by rubbing their wings together, Camptonotus males have soft forewings and stay silent, communicating in ways we still do not fully understand.
Their legs are stout, the fore tibiae lack tympanal organs, and the females carry a well-developed, sword-shaped ovipositor. A pale silhouette on a fern at dusk was how this one introduced itself.
