Subject: Strange grasshopper?
Location: Greece
August 18, 2014 12:04 pm
I am on holydays in Greece and I found this large insect dead in my kitchen. Initially I thought it was a grasshopper but I noticed that several features do not much. Would you be so kind to tell me what is it?
Signature: Stell Hai
Dear Stell,
This Katydid in the family Tettigonidae is in the same order Orthoptera as the Grasshoppers, but they are in different suborders, which explains their superficial resemblance to one another. We quickly located a pictorial match on FlickR that is identified as Saga hellenica, and the image was taken in Delphi, Greece in 1986. We had hoped to find more than just a name, and that proved to be the case when we found the Orthoptera and their Ecology site where it states: “The species leads a predatory life and eats mostly other insects.” We also learned: “Saga hellenica will be endangered in the long term due to the decline in habitats because of cultivation (afforestation, agricultural intensification, solar parks) and overbuilding (industry, tourism).” The range is listed as: “Southeastern Europe (Albania, Macedonia, Greece).” The pointy ovipositor at the end of the abdomen indicates that this individual is a female.
