Australian Grasshopper
April 10, 2010
Hi Bugman, would this be a grasshopper? Besides the eyes, I was also curious about the reddish/orange thing it had on its neck, but looking at grasshopper photos I guess it’s its mouth, not a tick or something gorging on it…
Best,
Ridou
Ridou Ridou
Sydney Australia
Hi Ridou,
Nice to hear from you again. This is not a grasshopper, but rather, a member of the same order, but classified as the suborder Ensifera of Long-Horned Orthoperta, and the family Tettigoniidae of Katydids, and the subfamily Conocephalinae of Coneheads.
We were unable to find a match on the Brisbane Insect website, and time if precious right now, so we are requesting assistance from an expert in the family, Piotr Naskrecki. Stay tuned for an update.
Hi Daniel,
This is a female of Pseudorhynchus, possibly P. lessonii, but impossible to
say based on the photo.
Cheers,
Piotr
With that information, we discovered on the Australian Museum website that this genus is known as the Mimicking Snout-Nosed Katydids and that: “It has strong mandibles for cracking grass seeds and, if carelessly handled, can give a nasty bite.”