The National Biodiversity Network have produced the iRecord Grasshoppers app to help you identify the grasshoppers, crickets, earwigs, cockroaches and stick-insects that you see or hear, and to record sightings to support their study and conservation.” Click on the link above to read more. Those of you who do not possess one of those shiny new smartphones may like to use the national Orthoptera Recording Scheme. Their website has plenty of useful information about grasshoppers and crickets, as well as identification information, recordings of their calls, distribution maps, etc. You can also use their website to submit your sightings, which will be verified before being added to national (and eventually county) records. This was a scheme that Paul Lund and Mike LeRoy promoted during their excellent talk on Orthoptera to the Society in September 2013. iRecord is a very promising records scheme launched by the National Biodiversity Network three years ago. Click here for more details. “to support online collection and collation of high quality biological recording data”. It has the considerable benefit that reported sightings are automatically checked to avoid errors and are open to verification by experts. iSpot is brilliant in helping people find out about the identification of species they have photographed, but iSpot, in contrast to iRecord doesn’t currently add these to national or local records, though they are working on that.” Many thanks to Mike LeRoy for providing the text for this article.

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