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Source: ITIS_080509
Family: Tettigoniidae
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The general appearance of this insect closely resembles that of normal weakly mottled males of A. schwarzi Caudell from southern Arizona. The male cerci are, however, very distinct, showing closest agreement with those of the larger, more robust and distinctively marked A. splendidus Hebard from southeastern California. The male cerci in these two species are of the more conventional type, not developed in any of the other species of the genus.
In considering the specialization of the sternites in females of Ateloplus we find that A. splendidus agrees with coconino in this feature except that the sternite preceding the subgenital plate shows meso-proximad an even weaker though more extensive projection which could therefore be easily overlooked. In A. luteus Caudell and A. hesperus Hebard that sternite bears a more prominent projection than in coconino while there is also a large rounded projection mesad on the preceding sternite. In females (including the type) of schwarzi similar specialization to that of luteus is developed, but in some others, which are apparently wholly inseparable and taken with males which are normal for that species, the preceding tergite is unspecialized as in coconino. Such difference, which apparently has no geographic significance, we can not explain at the present time. In the immature male the cerci have the apical production of the shaft much weaker with tooth consequently more distal, much as in adults of A. notatus Scudder. This may be the normal shape of the male cercus in the instar preceding maturity. |
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