UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
S^ff^SU 
BULLETIN No. 256 
Contribution from the Bureau of Entomology 
L. O. HOWARD, Chief 
Washington, |D. C. 
PROFESSIONAL PAPER 
July 27, 1915. 
KATYDIDS INJURIOUS TO ORANGES IN CALIFORNIA. 
• - if 
J fV I By J. R. Horton and C. E. Pemberton, 
\c Assistants, Tropical and Subtropical Fruit Insect Investigations. 
INTRODUCTION. 
; Tjbere ^1 at the present time in the San Joaquin Valley of Cali- 
fornia over 43,000 acres of land devoted exclusively to the cultivation 
of citrus. The citrus strip lies along the Sierra foothills between 
Bakersfield and Fresno. Although some citrus trees have been grown 
in this area for more than 25 years, most of this great acreage has been 
planted in the last 15 years. The transformation of this strip of land 
from a semiarid grain-growing belt into an irrigated fruit-growing area 
has so changed the status of certain formerly obscure species of insects 
native to the locality as now to bring them into prominence as pests. 
One of the more important of these species is "the fork-tailed katy- 
did, Scudderiafurcata Brunner. The amount of damage done by this 
insect has increased considerably since 1910, when it first came to the 
attention of the senior author. In 1912 it caused a loss in several 
orchards of a full fourth of the crop. 
Associated with the fork-tailed katydid in the orange groves and 
closely resembling it is the angular- winged katydid, Micro-centrum rhom- 
bifolium (Sauss.). This insect is also responsible for a certain amount 
of injury to orange trees annually, feeding voraciously, as it does, 
upon the leaves. It is, however, of much less importance than the 
former, and is treated here rather because of close association with and 
resemblance to the fork-tailed katydid than on account of its economic 
importance. No distinction has heretofore been made between these 
two species in the orange groves of California. 
THE FORK-TAILED KATYDID. 
NATURE AND EXTENT OF INJURY. 
The fork-tailed katydid (Scudderiafurcata Brunner), so named from 
the peculiar forked appendage at the tip of the abdomen in the male, 
Note.— Technical descriptions of two katydids causing serious damage to oranges in California are 
contained in this bulletin. Remedies and methods of control are discussed. 
93417°— Bull. 256—15 1 
