Decticus albifrons (Fabricius, 1775)

Nutrition:
Especially insects, but also plant parts.

Habitat:
Decticus albifrons inhabits mostly dry and shrubby grasslands, fallow land and other at least partly higher growing grassy places from moderately wet to very dry.

Life cycle:
The adults are found from July to late October, locally also earlier. They also like to conceal in dense shrubs or in higher gras clumps. The eggs overwinter in the soil (more than once?). On Madeira, I met first males and many larvae already in March 2013.

Endangerment factors:
Decticus albifrons is locally threatened in spite of its modest habitat claims, especially due to ever more intense agriculture which expands more and more to formerly little used areas, but also due to settlements, roads, industry and tourism projects.

Remarks:
Decticus albifrons is widespread in the Mediterranean, but remains after Bellmann (1993) quite closely to the Mediterranean coast. In inland Provence the imposing grasshopper occurs approximately to Manosque. In Northern Greece it is also quite common in the interior, as in the low foothills of the Askio mountains in the district Kozani, together with Celes variabilis and Tettigonia caudata.