Tetrix ceperoi, Cepero's groundhopper, is a member of the family Tetrigidae and is very similar to common grasshoppers. Grasshopper is defined as a "plant eating insect with long hind legs that are used for jumping and for producing a chirping sound". However, unlike the common grasshopper, the wings of T. ceperoi extend beyond its pronotum (the upper surface of the first segment of the thorax). The front wings have evolved throughout history to be stumps, and the back wings are very well developed. Thanks to the front wings only, T. ceperoi is capable of flying. Furthermore, T. ceperoi sports wide shoulders while covering its narrow abdomen beneath the pronotum. T. ceperoi are classified as Orthoptera, which describes crickets, grasshoppers, and locusts. Furthermore, these Orthoptera have incomplete metamorphosis, which also affects sexual dimorphism later. T. ceperoi reach an average length of about . T. ceperoi is a multi-coloured ground dweller with the ability to blend into its surroundings. The ability of T. ceperoi to be different colours makes it able to evolve colour schemes better adapted to specific habitats. This cryptic nature of their outer layer provides protection from predators as it is able to blend into its surroundings. T. ceperoi is diurnal, which means it is solely active in the daytime. However, although it is diurnal, it continues to hibernate during a late nymphal instar or later on in life as adults.
Habitat
T. ceperoi naturally resides in places with a hot climate, in damp and bare areas of land. However, due to threatened natural habitats, T. ceperoi also makes a home in dunes along shore lines, and in low and open vegetations. It exists across the coasts of the West Mediterranean area, Central Europe, Germany, Southern England and South Wales. As T. ceperoi has evolved, it has also become capable of surviving in "floodplains, moist dune slacks, sand pits, drainage ditches or ponds". Adult T. ceperoi are skilled swimmers and therefore are not hindered by the large amounts of water in close proximity.
Conservation
T. ceperoi is becoming an endangered species in Central Europe due to "coastal protection and floodplain regulation". Therefore, It can only claim its true natural habitat in areas of the Wadden Sea Islands.
Habitat experiments
The question of the little-known habitat of T. ceperoi has come into greater study recently. Hochkirch et al. observed the reproductive interference between T. ceperoi and T. subulata, a neighbor and closely related species. Often two species that are very similar and share similar habitats are able to coexist, but do so at the cost of one species eventually being displaced by the interaction and experience lower fitness. Before one is displaced, the two species can go through intense competition. Two different ways animals can experience competition could be resource competition and reproductive competition. Resource competition could consist of fighting for food or territorial locations strategically safe from harm whether that be from predators or weather. Reproductive competition is the result of similar species exhibiting similar mating and courting systems. T. ceperoi shares some common territory with T. subulata because of common habitat requirements, however they do not "co-occur locally". Experiments were conducted by based on the mechanisms of coexistence to better understand the interaction because previous "in lab" and "in the wild" experiments disagreed. This study had four primary ways of attacking the question of how reproductive interference was handled. First, they studied wild ground hoppers in order to understand the magnitude and sexual interaction of species in the wild. Second, they analyzed if the species used different micro habitats, which was important because it could lead to "segregation on a micro-scale". Third, they mapped where and in what amounts each species was present in relation to food sources in order to see if there was any type of segregation or aggregation. Lastly, they experimentally changed the different habitats in order to see if the spatial distribution was a reflection of the "micro-habitat preferences".