Phaneropterinae is the largest subfamily within the bush-crickets/ katydids (Tettigonioidea), with about 2451 species, and with a world-wide distribution. Its acoustic communication differs from all other tettigonioid groups in that females primarily and typically respond to the male calling song with their own acoustic reply, a behaviour referred to as duetting. This type of response seems to have been lost only in a few species with wingless females. According to our literature review, information about the song patterns of about 330 species of Phaneropterinae have been published world-wide. Included in this number are ca 170 species of Barbitistini, a flightless West Palearctic tribe, which are treated separately. In the present study we summarize information from the above 330 species. We examine the morphology of stridulatory and hearing organs, and analyze the acoustic signals for frequency, number of syllables and number of interval types. We also have examined if and how responding by sou...

In bush-crickets, males produce a calling song to announce their presence to females. Females ready to mate respond either by a phonotactic approach or signal their presence acoustically by establishing a kind of duet. This duetting behaviour is typical of phaneropterid bush-crickets, of which many species in Europe are flightless. In the long-winged genus Phaneroptera, the females also respond acoustically to the male calling song, which is quite similar in the three west European species in this genus. After acoustical contact, however, the behaviour of males and females of the three species differ markedly. In P. nana, males and females engage in a duet in which the female responds to each syllable of the male song (and he approaches her). In P. falcata, the female only responds to certain elements of the male song that are produced at long intervals. However, after her response the male does not change its song or its position, but often increases its singing activity (and the female approaches him). In P. sparsa the female only responds to particular, very complicated and soft elements of the male song, which are typically repeated at intervals of several to many minutes. After hearing the response, the male drastically changes its song by producing only the soft elements. These parts of the song contain syllables with a unique spectral composition and others that may threaten eavesdropping rivals. In this species both sexes probably move towards each other during mate localization. At present, we can only speculate about the adaptive nature of the different strategies.

The state São Tomé and Príncipe consists of two separated oceanic archipelagos situated in the Gulf of Guinea (West Central Africa). Except of a first survey on São Tomé in the 19th century, its Orthoptera fauna has never been studied systematically. Here a list of all tettigonioid species which have been recorded from the islands is presented together with information about the bioacoustics and biology of some species. Each archipelago harbours nine species, but only two species are found in both parts of the country. Two species and one subgenus are described as new: Adapantus (Adapantus) excavatus sp. nov., Brachyamytta bombomensis sp. nov., Neoadapantus subg. nov. The following nomenclatural changes had to be done: Corycoides greeffi (Krauss, 1890) becomes new synonym of Corycoides paradoxus (Bolivar, 1890), Xiphidion guineensis Redtenbacher, 1891, Xiphidion africanum Redtenbacher, 1891 and Conocephalus inequalis Uvarov, 1928 become new synonyms of Conocephalus iris Serville, 1838. The species list of Conocephalus, subgenus Conocephalus, is revised. Additionally the known tettigonioids of Annobón (Equatorial Guinea) are listed (4 species).