This is the Northern Mole Cricket,
Neocurtilla hexadactyla, one of my favorite insects. I saw my first when I was 12 years old and was instantly fascinated by the strangeness of it. I didn’t see another until we moved here. Now I hear them every autumn and see one every two or three years.
Like their namesakes, Mole Crickets spend most of their time in the ground. Their oversized, flattened forelegs are held horizontally to maximize tunneling efficiency. At the end of the leg are six large claw-like projections to aid in loosening and moving the soil. A Mole Cricket will have a burrow reaching several inches into the ground and ending in a small chamber. From this base, the cricket will tunnel mole-like just beneath the soil surface in a search for food.
The hind legs are not designed for jumping. Their shape allows them to maneuver the Mole Cricket through its narrow tunnel.
The wings are not capable of flight and are used to produce the calling song. It’s a shame that something as attractive as this spends all of its time hidden away.
The cricket didn’t like being exposed and actively tried to get back under cover. Here it’s trying to burrow between my fingers. For such a small insect, it could exert an amazing amount of pressure with those front legs.
When released, the Mole Cricket didn’t waste any time getting back underground.
Spring Peeper numbers have grown tremendously in the pond since last weekend. The sound of their calling is almost deafening. As you crouch at the edge of the pond, the peepers almost on your boot tops, the sound becomes a physical pressure inside the ears and your head seems to vibrate. Now that their concentration is centered on breeding, they pay little attention to my flashlight.
Most of the calling frogs prefer to perch on a bit of floating debris or an algae mat. Fallen branches make a perfect platform. It’s terribly difficult to pinpoint the location of a calling Peeper. Even when you’ve got them in the center of your spotlight beam, the sound doesn’t seem to match the visual. It’s like watching a film with an out of sync soundtrack.
Several frogs call from the pond bank. Since the number of calling frogs keeps increasing out in the pond, the frogs at the edge may represent new arrivals that haven’t yet found the prime breeding territory. This Peeper is at the edge of the pond calling from atop a raft of cut grass. The decomposing grass nourishes an explosion of unicellular organisms that will be consumed by the developing tadpoles.
A new batch of salamander eggs has arrived in the pond. I suspect that this cluster, looking very much like a plastic bag full of eyes, is from the Spotted Salamander. Spotted Salamanders should have bred during the rains last weekend. They are uncommon here, but I have plans to develop some additional breeding pools in an effort to increase their numbers.
Wood Frogs have produced several bunches of eggs. Eggs laid during high water times are sometimes stuck on branches that keep the eggs from dropping with the water level. After taking the picture, I rescued this bunch and made sure that it was properly submerged.
Not an amphibian, but this Mole Cricket took off at my approach and started to swim out into the pond. This was an unexpected encounter that added a little more zest to the evening. Mole Crickets are supposed to survive for two years in this area and overwinter as adults their second year, so I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising to find one. 
