By Garry Rogers

Arizona Grasshoppers and other Singing Insects

Grasshoppers, Crickets, and Katydids are familiar to everyone, but there are few records of distribution and conservation status.  This report includes a partial checklist for Arizona grasshoppers.  Grasshoppers are members of the Orthoptera, one of the most familiar insect orders.  Orthoptera includes two suborders: Caelifera (grasshoppers and relatives) and Ensifera (crickets, katydids, and gryllacridoids).

The katydid in the photo is probably Greater Angle-wing Katydid (Microcentrum Rhombifolium).  It is common in central Arizona where I live.  According to the BugGuide website, the similar California Angle-wing (Microcentrum californicum) also occurs in central Arizona.  The two are distinguished chiefly by their songs.

Most singing insects are herbivores.  Their occasional population explosions can reduce farm profits, and have led to emphasis on eradication.  Protection deserves more consideration.  Orthoptera are all important biomass recyclers, and all serve as essential sources of food for other animals.  Use of insects for human food is growing in popularity.  As the human population continues to swell, the proportion experiencing the culinary delights of bug dinning will grow.  We have to wait to see if grasshopper ranches arrive before textured soy protein replaces sirloin.

Orthoptera suffer from habitat loss just as other species groups do.  Farms, roads, and buildings are concentrated in valleys near lakes and streams.  The selective destruction of natural habitats in these more productive areas alters the size and composition of insect populations.  These changes reduce ecosystem diversity, stability, and productivity.  The references listed in the Singing Insects of North America website and in the list below are a good place to start to learn more about the ecological importance of these insects.

Grasshoppers

Many of the 400 grasshopper species known to occur in the western U. S. may be present in Arizona, but in the time available to prepare this report I could only verify 59 species from the USDA fact sheets (USDA and Pfadt 2002) and 35 from the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD–October 2013) website.  The list is almost certainly incomplete, and it probably contains outdated names.

I compiled the list from the range maps on the website of the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the October 10 species list by AZGFD.  The USDA fact sheets include maps, photographs, and the natural history of each species.  The Bug Guide provides additional information.

Crickets

Male crickets calling for mates by rubbing their forewings together are a common sound on warm summer nights.  The tone and frequency of the chirps varies with temperature.  Adding 40 to the number of chirps in 13 seconds yields a fairly accurate measure of the degrees Fahrenheit.

The website, Singing Insects of North America by Thomas J. Walker (crickets and katydids) and Thomas E. Moore (cicadas) provides a visual key to the nine families and subfamilies of North American Crickets north of Mexico.  It provides information on about 130 species.  House and field crickets of the Gryllinae subfamily are the most familiar. Distribution maps on the websiteshow the following five species are present in central Arizona.

• Gryllita arizonae – Arizona cricket
• Gryllodes sigillatus – Tropical House cricket
• Gryllus integer – Western Stutter-trilling cricket
• Gryllus multipulsator – Long-chirp Field cricket
• Gryllus pennsylvanicus – Fall Field cricket

Katydids

Around 350 species of Katydids in two families and six subfamilies are found in North America north of Mexico.  As mentioned above, two species of the Microcentrum genus occur near my home in central Arizona.  The range maps on the Singing Insects of North America website could be used to compile a more complete list for Arizona.

Singing Insects References and Notes

• Arnett, R.H.  2000.  American insects:  A handbook of the insects of America north of Mexico.  2nd Edition.  CRC Press.  1024 p.
• Bug Guide.  www.bugguide.net.
• Capinera, J.L, R.D. Scott, and T. J. Walker.  2004.  Field guide to grasshoppers, katydids, and crickets of the United States.  Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY  249 p.
• Orthopterists’ Society.  http://140.247.119.225/OrthSoc.
• Pfadt, R.E.  2002.  Field guide to common western grasshoppers:  Third edition.  Bulletin 912.   Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY.  288 p.
• Pfadt, R.E.  n.d.  Grasshopper species fact sheets.  Bulletin 912.   Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY.
• USDA.  Website:  http://www.sidney.ars.usda.gov/grasshopper/ID_Tools/F_Sheets/index.htm.
• Walker, T.J., and T.E. Moore. Website:  Singing Insects of North America.

Conservation Status Symbol Definitions

Symbols Applied by Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD)

• S1      Critically Imperiled: Extremely rare or some factor(s) is making the species especially vulnerable to extirpation.  Typically 5 or fewer locations or very few remaining individuals (<1,000).
• S2      Imperiled:  Rare or some factor(s) is making the species very vulnerable to extirpation. Typically 6 to 20 occurrences or few remaining individuals (1,000 to 3,000).
• S3      Vulnerable:  Rare or found only in a restricted range (even if abundant at some locations), or because of other factors making it vulnerable to extirpation.  Typically 21 to 100 occurrences or between 3,000 and 10,000 individuals.
• S#S# (e.g., S3S4):  Indicates the range of uncertainty about exact status.

Symbols Used for the Endangered Species Act (ESA) (U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service USFWS)

• SC       Species of Concern:  The terms “Species of Concern” or “Species at Risk” should be considered as terms-of-art that describe the entire realm of taxa whose conservation status may be of concern to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, but neither term has official status (currently includes all former C2 and delisted species).

Arizona Grasshopper Checklist

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