Diario del proyecto Grasshoppers, Crickets and Katydids of Ontario

Aeropedellus clavatus was recorded from Ontario for the first time!! Very good find @zonotrick with id aid by @graytreefrog . Due to the proximity of records in Manitoba, this species is likely to occur (and has been expected to occur there) up in northwestern Ontario, but @zonotrick went a little further and got it way up in northern Ontario some distance away from the provincial borders. Due to the limited number of northern observations or orthops, they can be very important in understanding species distributions in Canada.

It has also recently come forth that Anaxipha tinnulenta, or the Slow Tinkling Cricket (not to be confused with the Fast Tinkling Cricket, Anaxipha tinnulacita), was reported in southwestern Ontario based on some metabarcoding sampling. This species makes it a bit trickier to say if you have Say's Bush Cricket (Anaxipha exiguua) or not... the two species are separable by male song, the number of teeth on his wings or by molecular sequences. So consider trying out your sound recording chops to help verify your two species. This isn't just a problem with Anaxipha unfortunatley. There are several Oecanthus that are very similar morphologically (or identical) but have different songs and require acoustic observation, not visual. Check out Oecanthus nigricornis and Oecanthus forbesi!

Tis the season when the hoppers start really hopping, and taking a perusal of the species lists, it seems like orthops are definitely in people's radar. There are just enough to make it challenging but not enough to overwhelm. That being said, the one thing people seem to have the most difficulty in doing is recognizing nymphal orthops and realizing that they are often not identifiable to species. It can be tricky, but usually the nymphal wings have a less defined venation and often the pads are somewhat 'puffy' compared with mature wings. The terminalia of both males and females is also poorly developed, but this can sometimes misdirect people too.

The most regularly misidentified groups are Melanoplus and Conocephalus because they are commonly encountered in a variety of habitats, including urban settings. Nymphal Melanoplus are abundant and some have some odd markings that can confuse us and lead us down the wrong road of identification. Many different genera, including non-North American groups, have been added to the species list for Ontario based on misidentified Melanoplus (and an easy way for us to recognize there is a problem). Keep a close eye on your images and if you suspect it is a nymph, be cautious about species identification. With Conocephalus, the issue is largely limited to identification of species based on nymphs; Conocephalus strictus, a rarely encountered species in Ontario, seems to be regularly tagged as the go to species, while C. brevipennis and C. fasciatus are much more commonly encountered and are the likely culprits in most cases. While these mis-ids do catch our attention, posting them can lead to a long line of "collected nearby" identification biases by others, so be cautious. Alas, while we all want to get to that species level id, it may not be possible with images of just the nymphs.

Good luck with getting these nymph mis-ids in your rearview mirror this year... after all, hindsight is 2020!! :) If you have any questions, don't be afraid to tag any of the admins to help out with your ids (@stevepaiero or @brandonwoo )

Many moons ago, I co-wrote a checklist of Ontario 'orthopteroids' to update the taxonomy and provide something that naturalists could work off of when they were trying to determine species present at a site. When the "Grasshoppers, Crickets and Katydids of Ontario" project was first created, I created a species list in the observations that incorporated the Orthoptera portion of the checklist but, it appears, this was lost or hidden when the type of project changed. To continue to encourage people to continue documenting the provincial fauna, the link to the checklist is here (https://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/eso/article/view/3732/3785). If you are interested in a pdf and can't get access to it, let me know and I would be happy to send a copy along.

Please note that the fauna has already changed a bit. There are now three Ectobius (Blattodea) species known from Ontario, and two additional crickets (Hapithus agitator and Phyllopalpus pulchellus, both of which have a number of iNaturalist observations from southwestern Ontario).

Cheers

Over the past two years, two new crickets have been added to the provincial fauna based on observations on iNaturalist, including several from members of this group. Check out Phyllopalpus pulchellus and Hapithus saltator in the species list to see where they are being found. These observations are going to be included in a small note in the Journal of the Entomological Society of Ontario in the near future.

Also exciting, is the recent observation of Metaleptea brevicornis, a fairly distinctive species. This species has only been found previously in extreme southwestern Ontario many years ago, so it was with great excitement that it was recently located in the Port Maitland area. Check out https://inaturalist.ca/observations/31120345 for the recent observation. For those of you along the shores of Lake Erie, keep your eyes open for it.

Hi everyone,

We have finally (with some help) updated the project to allow it to be a collections project, which means more additions to the project. Hopefully this will help increase interest in these wonderful insects. Looking foward to seeing all the newly incorporated photos!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to share a few cool findings of Ontario orthops! Two species new to Canada were recently found and posted to iNaturalist, both from extreme southwestern Ontario. Phyllopalpus pulchellus and Hapithus agitator were both species that we could have expected to occur here, based on known distributions, so it is great that they turned up! Phyllopalus is one of the prettiest (and easiest to identify) crickets in the northeast so make sure to keep your eye open for them if you are in the Windsor area! I would expect that they both will expand their range at least a little into other parts of the province! For those in the Brantford area, we are still trying to track down Orocharis saltator there so please keep your camera and ears open!