Subject: Cricket? Katydid? Stinger?!?
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
August 21, 2014 6:08 am
My girls found this and thought it to be a grasshopper but it has what appears to be a stinger.
Signature: Michelle
Hi Michelle,
This is a Meadow Katydid in the tribe Conocephalini, and it is in the Greater Meadow Katydid genus Orchelium. The closest match we located on BugGuide is the Lesser Pine Katydid, Orchelimum minor, or possibly a Common Meadow Katydid, Orchelimum vulgare, also pictured on BugGuide. What you have mistaken for a stinger is actually the ovipositor, an organ used to lay eggs, which makes this individual a female.