Thursday, February 7, 2013

Announcing "OrThoptera Thursday"

Today I am introducing what will be yet another semi-regular feature of this blog: everything cricket, katydid, grasshopper, and related insect will be the focus of “OrThoptera Thursday.” Here in the west, short-horned grasshoppers (Acrididae) are a fixture of plains, prairies, deserts, and even mountain peaks. My visits to the eastern U.S. have been fruitful for the night shift of tree crickets, conehead katydids, and other “long-horned” grasshoppers.

To whet your appetite, I offer this teaser of links to past posts that referenced orthopterans as subjects:

As always, I welcome suggestions for topics; and I will be searching for specific species of grasshoppers, crickets, and katydids this spring, summer, and fall. I have trips planned for Kansas/Missouri, plus Ohio, and various locations here in eastern Colorado if all the pieces fall into place.

Lastly, a big thank you to all of you who follow this blog. I hope to get the chance to meet all of you in person eventually. Keep up your own great work and let me know if I can help.

4 comments:

  1. Oh, this will be a good one. Grasshoppers in particular give me trouble. (currently with short-horned I've got Carolina, Differential and "grasshopper"). Will you do crickets as well?

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  2. Yes, I'll do crickets, to the best of my ability, but they are maybe the most challenging. Many species are essentially identical in the morphological sense, but appear at different seasons, and/or sing different songs.

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  3. do you know the name of the second bug in this post? trying to identify a specimen for a biology project. thanks!

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    1. Megan: The second image is of an adult male Short-winged Meadow Katydid, Conocephalus brevipennis. Good luck with your project!

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