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Go to Encyclopedia of Life...
Source: ITIS_080509
Family: Acrididae
Arid Lands Spur-Throat Grasshopper
[Melanoplus tristis Bruner, 1904]
Smallish (mostly under 1 inch, but sometimes longer in the south). Antennae and eyes are usually brown, often strongly reddish. With very short wings, and the tegmina oval and usually widely separated. The bar behind the eyes on the sides of the pronotum is usually wide at the front, with an included pale spot, but narrows to a slightly up-bowed dark line at the top edges of either side of the mesonotum (rear part of the pronotum). There is usually a distinct (often very narrow, at least toward rear) dark stripe down the middle of the top of the pronotum. The abdomen usually has at least indications of two dark bands (often broken) extending back along either side of the top, and often a second pair of dark lines running just above these. The underside is usually yellowish. Hind tibia are blue, usually with blue or yellow on the lower half of the "knee" of the femur as well. Hind femur is usually mostly light brownish or yellowish on the outer side (more often grayish west of Arizona).
Male with end of abdomen not unusually enlarged; with subgenital plate evenly curved around the top edge; with fuculae well-developed, slender, longer than wide; cerci long and very slender, not pointed, usually bent in and up a bit and often very slightly swollen toward the tip, widening at the base. |
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