NOTES ON THE ORTHOPTERA. 



By M. P. Somes, Missouri State Fruit Experiment Station, Mountain Grove, 



Missouri. 



The Orthoptera comprises a group including types of so widely varying 

 forms as to be quite confusing to the beginner. Of course, every one prides 

 himself that he knows a "grasshopper" or a "cricket" when he sees one, but even 

 here there is good chance for error. Aside from these common forms there are 

 also such groups as the Roaches, the Walking Sticks, the Walking Leaf Insects 

 and the Mantids, to say nothing of some of the more rare exotic forms which at 

 casual examination would appear to have no connection with the forms we know 

 as the Orthoptera. For a general definition of this rather heterogenous order 

 we may say that it includes all those insects which have true mandibulate or chew- 

 ing type of mouth and have an incomplete metamorphosis. Thus there is never 

 a pupa stage and the young have from the first the same general form as the 

 adults, save that in those forms with winged adults the young are at first wing- 

 less and gradually develop the wings with successive moultings until maturity is 

 reached. 



The name Orthoptera signifies "straight winged" and is thus hardly fitting 

 as there are in this order forms with four wings, two wings, or with no wings. 

 There are also forms with long wings and with short wings, with "straight" 

 wings and with curved or arcuate wings. In point of habitat the order is repre- 

 sented in every zone save the Frigid by a goodly number of types, varying from 

 semi-aquatic to terrestrial and arboreal, and having feeding habits varying from 

 vegetarian, the ruling type of the order, to predaceous, carnivorous, or even 

 parasitic. 



Thus those of us who are familiar with the Lepidoptera, for instance, may 

 see that here we have a much more erratic and varying group and one in which 

 the subgroups run into some of the most interesting types of the whole insect 

 world. 



The order may be divided primarily into two great groups — the Non-Salta- 

 tona, or Non-Leaping Orthoptera, in which the hind legs are not especially 

 stouter or longer than the others, and the Saltatoria, or Leaping Orthoptera, in 

 which the hind legs are especially fitted for leaping, having the basal joint stouter 

 and being usually longer than the other pairs of legs. An examination of any 

 common grasshopper as a type of the Leapers and of a roach as a type of the 

 Non-Leapers will make this distinction clear. The first group — the Non-Leaping 

 Orthoptera — may be again subdivided into three families, as follows: 



The body broad, flattened, ovate, the head recurved under the thorax; legs 

 fitted for running . . . The Roaches (Blattidae). 



The body elongate, not distinctly flattened, head not recurved under thorax; 

 legs long and slender, not fitted for rapid movement. 



Front legs eminently fitted for grasping prey; antennae short and slender 

 The Mantids (Mantidae). 



Front legs slender, not fitted for grasping prey; antennae long and rather 

 stout . . . Walking Sticks (Phasmidae). 



Of the above the Roaches are best known by the few species which have 

 become cosmopolitan pests, such as the Croton Bug or German Roach (Blatella 

 germanica), or the Oriental Roach (Blatta orientalis), sometimes called the 

 "Black Beetle"; but there are in almost every locality a number of native species, 

 harmless, unobtrusive little insects living under the bark of trees, rocks and fallen 

 cacti or other places of concealment. Most of these species native to America 



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