DENVER, Colo. — A University of Denver instructor who tells his students to listen closely to the night heard something he recognized, and it turned out to be the first known detection in Colorado of an invasive cricket from Asia.
“I heard the sound, and I just knew it was significant,” said Ted Floyd, an ornithology expert and instructor for DU’s Enrichment Program. He said he recorded the low-pitched chirp with his cellphone on Sept. 25 and then used a spectrogram and expert confirmation to identify the insect.
The species is the Japanese Burrowing Cricket. Native to Japan and other parts of Asia, the cricket has been established in parts of the eastern United States since the late 20th century and has been steadily expanding west and north, Floyd said.
His recording was posted to the nonprofit biodiversity mapping site iNaturalist and added to the global database after experts confirmed the identification…