Long Winged Cone-head - Conocephalus fuscus

This is a small Bush-cricket, named for the angled shape of its head. It is a slender green insect. The adult has brown wings which extend beyond the tip of the abdomen and brown stripe along the back. The nymphs have short wings and the stripe along the back is black.

Coarse vegetation and rough grassland, urban wasteland, marshes, coastal reedbeds, dry heaths and bogs.

Nymphs emerge in late May and June. Adults present from August until early winter.

Omnivorous, feeding on grasses as well as small insects. Females bite a hole in hollow stems of grass, reed or rush, and then insert an egg with their ovipositor.

Once considered so rare in Britain that it was on the Red Data List, it has now spread but is still found mainly from the English Midlands southwards.

Fairly frequent now in Leicestershire and Rutland.

A wetland species first recorded in Leicestershire at Aylestone Meadows in 2001 and in Rutland from Rutland Water in 2003; spreading rapidly.