I keep looking at this thing and seeing "male". I'm going to try to blow it up and see if the cercus becomes a more obvious shape. It could be an M. bivittatus male cercus, but sure doesn't look like the more irregular cercus of M. differentialis.

You made a comment on my Pbase site with a slightly larger photo, saying it looks like a M. bivittatus nymph.

That is interesting. I didn't realize I'd commented on the same one before. I blew up this photo on my computer (looses definition, but not too bad), and it does look like a male after-all, and it does look more like M. bivittatus. So, as they used to say on Laugh In - "never mind". Now I'll go hide my red face :)

Dave

It's kind of my fault for not moving it in bugguide after you identified it on my pbase site:-)

Hey, it's fun regardless. I love going through and looking at all these wonderful photos, and I learn a lot in the process. We got to throw in a small discussion about variation in M. bivittatus in the process.

My gut reaction to this one was Melanoplus differentialis, but the markings on the hind femur are a bit off (not bold enough, and a bit too divided between top and bottom halves). Then I looked at the location, and I'm not sure if this species even occurs that far north? The probably more likely (and only other) option is M. bivittatus. This species is a bit different looking in the northeast than in much of the country. The hind femur of the adults there tend to have the racing stripe (top half of side sharply and boldly dark above the contrastingly light lower half) missing or weak , and often with a bit of a faint herringbone pattern instead. It wouldn't surprise me if the nymphs reflect this difference. These two species are very closely related, and the nymphs are often very similar-looking except for the pattern of the hind femur (and the cerci of older males - which look different on your - perhaps - female). By the way, this is a last (5th) instar nymph.