Die Stimmen der Heuschrecken
Recently, a new German guide on the songs of European grasshoppers has been published. "Die Stimmen der Heusckrecken" has been comprised by Christian Roesti and Bruno Keist. It contains a wealth of information on the bioacoustics of grasshoppers and crickets from Switzerland and Germany. The book describes bioacoustic techniques and terminology and the features of grasshopper songs.
For every of the 96 singing species of grasshoppers a comprehensive description of the song characters is presented, including one or more oscillograms.
The accompanying DVD adds to that several recordings for each species, including calling song, courtship song or even more where available. Recordings are available both in low resolution mp3-format and high resolution wav-format (up to 96 kHz sample frequency).
As the book completes the information in "Die Heuschrecken der Schweiz" and includes the bioacoustics of all German species, a chapter is added with the description of the general characters of the 11 German species that do not occur in Switzerland and the Swiss book.
To minimize confusion with other singing animals, the DVD also includes recordings of several frogs, toads, birds, bats and cicadas.
This publication is a very valuable document for anyone interested in European Orthoptera and knowledge of the German language.
Roesti, C. & B. Keist 2009. Die Stimmen der Heuschrecken (144 pp. with DVD). Haupt Verlag, Bern – Stuttgart – Wien. ISBN 978-3-258-07279-1