Orthoptera - BugGuide.Net

Recent changes

There have been some recent changes in the classifications used in the Orthoptera Species File, for example Stethophyma has been moved to Oedipodinae in accordance with much published evidence. I've made these changes as I've found them (I was actually thinking of making this particular change anyway :o).

Tribes have been added under Oedipodinae in order to place related genera together and hopefully to aid in identification, basically following Orthoptera Species Files. However, a few that contain only one or a few genera have been placed with others most similar for both convenience and/or because in recent molecular studies they group together. I'm considering similar for Gomphocerinae, but it may not be workable there.

… David J. Ferguson, 7 May, 2009 - 2:31pm

new Orthoptera Species File URL

The old URLs with "osf2" in them are apparently broken. The new OSF home page is currently here.

I compared BugGuide's current classification of families and genera with OSF and this is how OSF treats the differences:

in suborder Caelifera:
1. genus Bradynotes is placed in subfamily Melanoplinae, not Podisminae (which has been reduced to a tribe - Podismini)
2. genus Clematodes is placed in subfamily Copiocerinae, not Melanoplinae.
3. genus Stethophyma is placed in subfamily Acridinae, not Gomphocerinae.
4. genus Booneacris is placed in subfamily Melanoplinae, not Gomphocerinae.
5. genus Stenacris is placed in subfamily Leptysminae, not Cyrtacanthacridinae.

in suborder Ensifera:
1. family Trigonidiidae is considered a synonym of Gryllidae. The subfamilies Trigonidiinae and Nemobiinae could be moved under Gryllidae, and the Trigonidiidae page removed.
2. family Eneopteridae has been discontinued. The genera Orocharis, Hapithus are placed in subfamily Hapithinae, family Gryllidae.
3. the Scaly Crickets are classified as a full family (Mogoplistidae), not a subfamily of Gryllidae.
4. subfamily Copiphorinae is reduced to a tribe (Copiphorini) of subfamily Conocephalinae. The genera Belocephalus, Neoconocephalus, Pyrgocorypha could be moved under Conocephalinae, and the Copiphorinae page removed.
5. genus Neobarrettia is placed in subfamily Listroscelidinae, not Tettigoniinae.

I could make these changes if nobody objects within the next few weeks...

… Robin McLeod, 6 January, 2008 - 9:10pm

NIce work, Robin

in catching these needed updates.

… john and jane balaban, 7 January, 2008 - 5:39pm

Yes, thanks, chuckling a bit

Yes, good work, though I must confess to an inward chuckle. I think when I first tried to organize the katydids, following Arnett (1), I did have, or was going to put, Copiphorinae (Coneheads) as a subfamily of Conocephalinae (Meadow Katydids and Coneheads), but some more recent publication (Singing Insects of North America--see my comments from 2005 below) had it as a distinct subfamily, so we ended up following that. I think this does illustrate how some of these higher-level classifications go back and forth, to some extent with academic fads. Gosh, did I really make those comments in 2005?

I'll just request that when Copiphorinae is relegated to a tribe, that any useful information in that subfamily page be copied over to the new tribe page--that would be just a couple of sentences describing the group.

… Cotinis, 7 January, 2008 - 8:16pm

Actually...

there are no tribes in BugGuide's Orthoptera tree at the moment, and I wasn't planning to add any. I was just thinking of moving genera from Copiphorinae to Conocephalinae, copying the pertinent info from the Copiphorinae page and incorporating it into Conocephalinae, and briefly explaining the tribes Conocephalini and Copiphorini (along with links to appropriate sections of the OSF site).

This "new" OSF site is even more extensive than I remember it a couple of years ago. There's a huge number of references, the coverage is world-wide, and many experts are contributing to the site. One minor quibble: when I changed the number of subordinate levels to 3 (using the "Change items dispayed" button) and started navigating the taxa links, I repeatedly came upon error messages at the bottom of the page saying the number of characters exceeds 100,000. Apparently, the results get truncated at that limit, making it necessary to revert to the level 2 or even level 1 setting to see what was missing.

… Robin McLeod, 7 January, 2008 - 11:03pm

Yes, orthoptera work needed

I'd say the orthoptera need a bit of work. I did some of the work in the Katydids--Tettigonidae, but I was looking at Arnett, (1) and that does not seem to be current thinking. It is way beyond my competence to even get started on it.

I've looked at OSF, and there are so many levels, I can't figure out where to start. So if anybody has good ideas, I'd say

Patrick Coin
Durham, North Carolina

… Cotinis, 28 April, 2005 - 8:51am

Orthoptera

Oops, I forgot about this project. I'll try to take a crack at it this weekend and see how it goes.

… Joel Kits, 28 April, 2005 - 4:17pm

Partly done

I checked things out down to subfamily level. There were a few changes, the biggest being that the Gryllidae (1) has been cut down a lot, and now only contains (in the guide at least) the field crickets. There were some images in that family that weren't assigned to a subfamily. I moved some of them up to Ensifera (2), but couldn't tag two of them for some reason. If somebody can move them all to the right place that would be great.

I haven't checked out how things are beyond subfamily level, so some of the genera might have to be moved around. A project for another day, perhaps.

… Joel Kits, 1 May, 2005 - 8:12pm

Minor tweaks to orthoptera--family order

I reordered the families of orthoptera within long-horned and short-horned groups according to the order used by Capinera (1) et al., since they have a handy, simple, taxonomy in their introduction. This put related families in sequence in the guide, though some sources demote these to subfamilies. I didn't mess with those, just put them in a logical (I think) order.

I also reordered the subfamilies of katydids according to the order used at Singing Insects of North America. This puts the subfamilies in a logical sequence, with Copiphorinae next to Conocephalidae, and the Phaneropterinae - false katydids next to Pseudophyllinae - true katydids. Capinera uses a slightly different order there, but it still puts the same subfamilies next to each other.

This is all minor ordering, and not changing the family-level taxonomy--just puts related groups adjacent to each other in the guide.

Patrick Coin
Durham, North Carolina

… Cotinis, 30 October, 2005 - 9:01am

Thanks

I think I took care of the images you mentioned (cricket w/parasite?). Not sure why you couldn't tag them. I frassed one as a dupe of the other and moved one to Ensifera.

… Troy Bartlett, 2 May, 2005 - 7:32pm