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| Insects of Britain and Ireland: 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 (excluding terminal abdominal appendages) to about equalling the abdomen (neither much longer nor much shorter). Hindwings fully developed and functional for flight; 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 of the males such as it is, femoro-alary, involving rubbing the rough insides of the hind femora against prominent veins in the forewings. Auditory organs located in the first abdominal segment (sometimes concealed by the folded wings or the hind-legs, and the tympanal cavity sometimes partially covered by a flap).
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. 1, Pachytylus cinerascens Fab.; 2, Pezotettix pedister L.; 3, Anacridium aegyptium L. (Egyptian Grasshopper); 4, Locusta migratoria L. (Migratory Locust); 5, Oedipoda caerulescens L. (Blue-winged Grasshopper: common in mainland Europe, and occurring in the Channel Islands). Illustrations of females, by S.L. Mosley from Burr (1897: the names of 1–3 and 5 as employed by him).
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, 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. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. Insects of Britain and Ireland: the genera of Orthoptera. Version: 14th April 2022. delta-intkey.com’.
