Host plants of the non-swarming edible bush cricket .

The edible (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) is a widely-consumed insect in East Africa but surprisingly little is known of its host plant use in the field. We studied host plants used by non-swarming for 15 months, in central Uganda. In particular, we assessed the use of host plant species with respect to host cover in the field and host parts used by , also recording their sex, developmental stages, and colour morph. were found on 19 grass and two sedge species and they were observed predominantly (99% of 20,915 observations) on seven grasses (namely, , , , , , , and ). was most frequently observed on the most common grass of each study site but , and were used more frequently than expected from their cover in the field. Furthermore, were observed predominantly on inflorescences (97% of feeding observations) and much less frequently on the leaves (3.0%), stems (0.1%), and inflorescence stalks (0.1%) of grasses and sedges. Host use was not independent of sex, developmental stage, or colour morph. was the preferred host of the youngest nymphs of . Overall, our findings indicate that a continuous supply of diverse grass resources with inflorescences is necessary for the management and conservation of wild populations of .