Species Schistocerca shoshone - Green Bird Grasshopper

Green Valley Grasshopper

Schistocerca shoshone Thomas, 1873 stat. rev.

Acridium shoshone Thomas, 1873

Schistocerca venusta Scudder, 1899

Schistocerca obliquata Scudder, 1899

Schistocerca shoshone (Thomas) Henderson, 1942

Schistocerca alutacea shoshone (Thomas) Dirsh, 1974

After Dirsh's publication in 1974, treated as a subspecies Schistocerca alutacea shoshone, but originaly described at species rank by Thomas in 1873 and treated again at species level by more recent authors. [see Internet References section below]

abdominal tergites lack black markings; male fore femur and middle femur inflated

Trans-Pecos Texas, New Mexico, sw. Utah, s. Nevada, s. California, south into northern Mexico.

Mostly streamside (riparian) habitats in desert regions; also frequently found in tall lush vegetation in agricultural and residential areas.

June or July to hard feezes of late fall or early winter.

prefers various woody plants; adults stay on an individual host plant for most of the day, remaining motionless when not feeding

one generation per year; eggs hatch over an extended period in spring and early summer; late instar nymphs and adults are seen by June, and these gradually die through the late summer, often lasting into November or even December.

The "alutacea" group of the genus Schistocerca is still a bit of a mess. The taxonomy is confused, and each author to treat them has done it somewhat differently. It is pretty clearly resolved now which insects belong to which type, but there are still some of debated and unresolved issues as to which insects belong to the same species and which are distinct enough to be called different species. This means that the same insect might be called by two or three different names, even in current literature.

The work of Song is mostly followed here, but it has a problem area in which it doesn't seem to fit well with reality for a large part of the populations found west from the Rockies. Song's treatment splits like-looking striped green specimens between Schisocerca lineata and Schistocerca shoshone based on the presence or absence of some dots on the abdomen. The insects don't seem to notice the dots, and wild adults will quite happily pair up and mate with one another regardless of whether the dots are there or not. Most striped populations seem to include both conditions. Song didn't give any other character to separate what he called S. lineata and S. shoshone west from the Rockies.

Here they are divided by coloration under either Schistocerca lineata (mostly darker green, darker above than on sides, [?always?] with a contrasting pale dorsal stripe and with dark eyes) or Schistocerca shoshone (mostly fairly even light green, rarely with any indication of a pale dorsal stripe, and lighter blue eyes). This seems to relate best to real live populations in the field, which behave usually (always?) as distinct species when they occur in the same place. It is much less confusing too.

The same names are used here as used by Song, but the characters that actually seem to relate best to real populations are used. This is basically the same as traditional treatments that were followed before Dirsh lumped them all together under S. alutacea, and before Song's rearrangement. The difference is that many authors then used the name "S. venusta" (described from Indio California) for the striped ones, and kept them distinct (usually with reservations) from both S. shoshone and S. lineata.

Striped ones may indeed be a regional variant of S. lineata, but it is also possible that they are a distinct species that should be called S. venusta. It is clear in the field that they behave as a distinct species from the unstriped S. shoshone, but they replace S. lineata to the west, and that relationship is less clear.

There is yet another problem involving the name S. shoshone. The designated neotype* specimen was from Logan, Utah, but seems to be lost. The odds that this was the same unstriped insect that was originally described as S. shoshone seem low, since it is the striped insect ('\"venusta" that occurs in the Logan area. The original description of the species S. shoshone calls for an unstriped insect that lives in southeastern Nevada and southeastern Utah, and matches the one traditionally call by the name in southwestern desert regions. The name S. venusta was given to striped insects from Oregon, Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona, Texas, and California; with the type specimen later designated as from Indio, California.

[[The more I dig, the messier it gets. David J. Ferguson 1-14-09]]

*neotype is a specimen designated as the the "type" representative to define the name of a species when no original type specimen is known. Basically it is a "replacement" if the original didn't ever exist, or if it has disappeared. It is not unusual for a mistake to be made in designating a neotype, especially when the original description and "protocals" of the original publication are not followed to the letter. Sometimes the second author is trying to make a point and purposely uses a specimen that doesn't quite fit. Sometimes the second author misinterprets what the name really means (thus the nead of a type specimen in the first place!). In this case the neotype was designated from a region outside of that defined in the original description, and is unlikely to be the same thing as originally described. This can be fixed by a later author, but in this case this needs to be researched, and has not yet been resolved. Not sure what happens when the neotype is lost too, maybe we need a neo-neotype :)

Original description of S. shoshone in Proceedings of The Academy of Natural Sciences (Part I I -- Mar., Apr., May, June, 1873). See p. 470

Original description of Schistocerca venusta in Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1846). See p. 470-1

pinned adult image (Northern Arizona U.)

photos of types of Schistocerca venusta and obliquata (schistocerca.org)

distribution map (schistocerca.org). Combines distributions of S. shoshone and S. lineata "venusta".

revision of the Alutacea Group of Genus Schistocerca; PDF doc - elevating S. alutacea shosone and other former subspecies to species rank (Hojun Song. 2004. Ohio State University)

similarities among related species in the Alutacea group (schistocerca.org) [Combines distributions of [i]S. shoshone and [i]S. "venusta"]

common name reference [Green Bird Grasshopper] (Comparative Toxicogenomics Database)