British Insects: the Genera of Orthoptera
| British Insects: the Genera of Orthoptera | |
Adults diurnal; 17–20 mm long (males), or 25–26 mm long (females); darkish sandy brown, with darker bands on the hindlegs and forewings.
The antennae relatively short, with fewer than 30 segments. The pronotum with a median dorsal keel (the keel crossed by a groove). Forewings well developed; greatly exceeding the abdomen when folded to about equalling the abdomen. Hindwings fully developed; pale blue with a black band. Foreleg tarsi 3 segmented; mid-leg tarsi 3 segmented; hindleg tarsi 3 segmented. The hind femora keeled. The ovipositor relatively short, and consisting of separate, prong-like valves articulated at the base. The males only faintly stridulous, or mute (the hind femora lacking stridulatory pegs). The sound production such as it is, femoro-alary. Auditory organs located in the first abdominal segment.
British representation. 1 species. Oedipoda caerulescens (Blue-winged Grasshopper). Native. Channel Islands.
Vegetarian (feeding mainly on grasses?); found outdoors in natural habitats (confined to hot, dry places on dunes and cliffs in the Channel Islands).
Classification. Suborder Caelifera; Superfamily Acridoidea; Acrididae.
Comments. The hind femora are dorsally high crested to just beyond the middle. Immediately distinguished by the bright blue hindwings: a common mainland-European species.
Illustrations. • Exotic species occasionally recorded.
To view illustrations with detailed captions, go to the interactive key. This also offers full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. British insects: the genera of Orthoptera. Version: 9th April 2007. http://delta-intkey.com’.
