1923] CRABB. PAINTED GRASSHOPPER 145 



A PAINTED GRASSHOPPER FROM OKLAHOMA 



By E. D. Crabb^^ 



The Public Museum has in its collection of insects a rare Oklahoma 

 specimen of the gaily colored locust, Dactylotum pictum Charpientier. 

 This species is perhaps more generally known as the "painted grass- 

 hopper." 



Like many really important discoveries, this insect was found very 

 unexpectedly. In walking through a dry, desolate pasture, bordered 

 by some sandstone bluffs, near Red river in Jefferson county, Okla- 

 homa, this gaily decorated grasshopper was seen proceeding leisurely 

 through the sparse, dry vegetation along the rim of a deep gulch. 

 Although this insect was not more than an inch and a quarter long, 

 it occasioned that keen joy which comes to a collector when he cap- 

 tures a specimen which has never been reported from that region. 



The general colors of this grasshopper were yellowish on the front 

 edges of all the segments, giving way to red on the top, while the major 

 portion of the sides were very dark brewster green in life. The top 

 of each abdominal segment, as well as the top and sides of the thorax 

 and head were red. With regard to the proportion of colors, dark 

 brewster green and lighter green rank first, though the outline of these 

 shades is indefinite; yellow is next in importance, with red of nearly 

 equal extent. 



Since bird studies had been carried on in all the southern and 

 western counties of Oklahoma, except Cimarron, and Texas, without 

 having met the painted grasshopper, it is certain that it is not com- 

 monly found in Oklahoma. Indeed, it appears that there is only one 

 species of painted grasshopper in the United States, and that it gen- 

 erally occurs "From Dakota to Texas along the eastern front of the 

 Rocky Mountains. "^^ Other genera and species of painted grass- 

 hoppers occur in Mexico, Central and South America. 



^'Associate Lecturer, Milwaukee Public Museum. 



48Scudder, "Guide, N. A. Orthoptera North of Mexico," p. 50, 1875. 



