Identification
Dark legs distinctive. Face white with mottling. Very similar to
Handsome Meadow Katydid,
Orchelimum pulchellum, mostly found in the southeast. Singing Insects of North America Range maps (
Black-legged,
Handsome), but that species has bluish rather than reddish eyes (when alive), and the tibiae are usually more reddish or brownish than the black that is most often seen in
O. nigripes. Male cerci are somewhat different in shape (see link to SINA below).
There are two zones of overlap. One, probably new, is northeastern where the two species apparently produced hybrids of reduced fertility and vigor (so the two species remain distinct there), and another southeastern (between the Gulf of Mexico and the south end of the Appalachians in Mississippi and Alabama), where the two species blend and individuals are intermediate in character.
Range
Eastern and Central US, between Southern Rockies (e. Colorado and se. Wyoming) and Appalachians. Roughly from South Dakota to southeastern Ontario and south to near Gulf Coast in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. South of the Applachians (mostly in Mississippi and northern Alabama) it meets and intergrades with O. pulchellum, which occurs further east.
Often very abundant in marshy habitats in the Midwest and on the Great Plains.
Also occurs, and probably introduced in Chesapeake Bay drainage (and expanding its range northward), in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, and near Amherst, Massachusetts. Probably also in New York. In this region sometimes hybridizes with closely related O. pulchellum, but seems to remain distinct.
These eastern populations seem to have first appeared in Virginia near Washington D.C. and Chesapeake Bay, and were first collected in that region in the early 1900's.
Habitat
wetland habitats such as marshes or bordering lakes, streams, etc.
Life Cycle
Overwinters as eggs, hatches in late spring, with adults mostly in late summer-fall. Adults late July to mid-November depending on weather and latitude.
Along the Platte and Arkansas Rivers (and probably elsewhere) it often hatches from eggs submersed for a month or more by spring floods.
See Also
Orchelimum pulchellum - Handsome Meadow Katydid (and see
discussion at SINA)
Internet References
SINA (Singing Insects of North America)
