Amblycorypha parvipennis: Phaneropterinae subfamily » Amblycorypha rotundifolia Group
name:
Amblycorypha parvipennis (Stål 1876): the specific epithet refers to the short wings (
parvus-small,little;
penna-feather).
Adult female Amblycorypha parvipennis:
In spring of 2022, I was able to find seven Amblycorypha parvipennis nymphs, and they were the only seven I had ever seen. I raised the young nymphs to adult. The following spring I got just a few F1 nymphs from my original adults, and while I raised them, I also collected a few more nymphs from the field.
This short article includes the following sections: 1)Housing and Care, 2) Nymph to Adult, 2022, 3) F1-generation Nymphs and Collected Nymphs, 2023, 4) Song, 5) Mating and Alluring Glands, 6) Laying Eggs, 7) Observations, and 8) A Few Resources.
Housing and Care
As with other species of katydids that I rear, I use large butterfly cages for housing. The cages measure 36" x 24" x 24". The insects get natural light through the windows as well as additional full spectrum lighting over each cage for eight hours a day.
Sample rearing cages for Amblycorypha species:
Cage used for Amblycorypha parvipennis nymphs in 2023:
FOOD
For all of my Amblycorypha species, I provide native plants in 4-inch pots as well as organic Romaine lettuce, organic apple slices, rolled oats, cricket powder, pecan/walnut/almond slices, nectar sponges, and fresh water.
This adult female is enjoying her salad:
Here's a nymph and adult munching cricket powder:
Here is an adult and a nymph on butterfly sponges:
This adult is munching on lettuce:
And this adult female munching oats:
Here's a
VIDEO of an adult male A. parvipennis munching on apple with background singing.
Here's a
VIDEO of an adult munching lettuce with loud background singers.
Nymph to Adult, 2022
NYMPH
I found my first nymph on April 3, 2022.
I do not know how many instars these guys go through, but I would guess around seven. These images show male and female Amblycorypha parvipennis nymphs getting bigger:
Final-instar nymph female:
Here are some moulting photos of a nymph with exuvia:
ADULT
My first full female of the season moulted on May 3, 2022, and my first full male, on May 9, 2022. By May 29, 2022, all of my initial 7 collected nymphs had moulted to full adult.
This is a freshly-moulted adult female:
Another adult female with close-up of ovipositor:
And here's an adult male:
and another adult male:
Adults lived an average of two months after moulting to full adult, and my final A. parvipennis, a male, died on August 8, 2022.
F1-generation Nymphs and Collected Nymphs, 2023
I got very few F1 nymphs from my original collected Amblycorypha parvipennis with only about four surviving to full adult. (It is possible that some or most of the eggs are on a two-year cycle.)
My first F1 was born early in the season, as expected, on March 8, 2023. She moulted to full adult on May 23, 2023.
The following are some images through her development.
My first F1 Amblycorypha parvipennis, shown here from March 19, 2023 to May 27, 2023:
While I was raising my few F1s, I collected a handful of additional nymphs from the field beginning April 2, 2023. Among my collected 2023 nymphs, the first five adults moulted on May 7, 2023 (three females), May 12, 2023 (one male), and May 13, 2023 (one male).
The first small sound from a male was on May 17, 2023, with the first full songs occurring on May 22, 2023. My final adult Amblycorypha parvipennis died on July 28, 2023.
Song
The song of this species consists of phrases to which the female may answer (Galliart & Shaw,1996). The Singing Insects of North America site includes
samples of A. parvipennis song. In addition, I am including several videos here.
Here's a male calling and female answering and then swiping left:
VIDEO of male call / female answer.
Here is some katydid flirting going on. Use your song, use your feet, use everything you've got!
VIDEO of gentleman impressing lady.
Here's what it looks like to be flirted with by an Amblycorypha parvipennis:
VIDEO of song.
Here's a gentleman singing while the lady listens in:
VIDEO of song.
VIDEO of song.
VIDEO on song
VIDEO of song with some seriously loud competition! (Do you recognise the competitors?)
VIDEO of song.
Mating and Alluring Glands
The presence of alluring glands (more on this in a separate article) informs mating position for this species. The male delivers a significant spermatophylax. It seems to me that mating for this species is triply expensive for the male, involving a considerable amount of singing, the production of glandular fluids to entice the female into position, and the production of large spermatophylaces.
This species shows alluring gland behaviour considerably more frequently than the other two species I wrote about,
A. huasteca and
A. rivograndis, and, in fact, I never observed alluring gland behaviour in the latter. Even so, actual mating might occur less frequently in A. parvipennis based on the fact that I rarely observed females with spermatophylaces.
Amblycorypha parvipennis mating:
Females lured into mating position through alluring glands:
This
VIDEO shows a singer who successfully interrupts a mating pair, but never gets the lady!
VIDEO of mating attempt
VIDEO of alluring gland behaviour
VIDEO of alluring gland behaviour and mate attempt.
VIDEO of alluring gland behaviour.
Here's a female grooming her ovipositor:
SPERMATOPHYLAX
With the other Amblycorypha species I wrote about,
A. huasteca and
A. rivograndis, it was common for the female to discard the spermatophylax after mating. With A. parvipennis, however, I saw significantly fewer occasions of females carrying spermatophylaces and only three instances of a discarded spermatophylax.
Discarded spermatophylax:
During mating, the male attempts to deliver a spermatophylax to the female, even though alluring-gland positioning makes this difficult unless she curls her abdomen under him to receive the spermatophylax. As such, I sometimes saw males with dried, undelivered spermatophylaces still attached. On one occasion, I believe this killed the male.

:
The size and shape of the spermatophylax is similar to that of the other Amblycorypha species mentioned in this section.
Laying Eggs
Amblycorypha parvipennis lay eggs in soil, as with other reported cases of Amblycorypha (Walker, 2004). I provided soil substrate dishes in the cage which is what they usually used:
In addition, they occasionally laid eggs in potted plants, as shown here:
Eggs of Amblycorypha parvipennis are cream- to tan-coloured, flattened, and oval-shaped. They measure an average of 6 mm.
Anecdotally, I think there's a remote possibility that this species might also lay eggs in plants. I say this because I found several eggs laid inside a single layer of newspaper used at the bottom of their cage. My other species who regularly lay eggs inside newspaper, Scudderia furcata and Scudderia curvicauda, are species who use plants. Laying an egg inside a single layer of newspaper is comparable to laying an egg inside a leaf: they chew a starter hole and then work their ovipositor into a single layer of newspaper. There might be a possibility that A. parvipennis use both. (I have on occasion seen Scudderia lay eggs in soil.)
Here are eggs laid inside newspaper:
Interesting, some of the eggs I found were stacked, like those of Neoconocephalus:
Observations
These katydids occur earlier in the season than do most other species in my area.
Most interesting to me in this species is alluring gland behaviour, which was observed frequently. The song is quite unique and I was able to hear the female answering the male.
Specific behaviours appear to be more easily observable in some species of Amblycorypha and not in others. Courtship was observed more often in Amblycorypha parvipennis, while the presence of spermatophylaces was observed more in A. huasteca and A. rivograndis. Laying eggs was easy to observe in A. huasteca, but I never observed it in A. rivograndis and only a few times for A. parvipennis. The longest living of the three was A. huasteca and the shortest was A. parvipennis.
Of the three Amblycorypha species I raised, this one was the most intriguing to me. I hope others will consider rearing this species because there is so much to be learned about this species, including alluring gland behaviour and the possibility of two-year or even three-year cycles for eggs.
References
Galliart, P. L., & Shaw, K. C. (1996, August 24). The effect of variation in parameters of the male calling song of the katydid,Amblycorypha parvipennis (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae), on female phonotaxis and phonoresponse. SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02208973
Walker, T. J. (2004). The uhleri Group of the Genus Amblycorypha (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae): Extraordinarily Complex Songs and New Species. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3503720
Walker, T. J. Western Round-winged Katydid Amblycorypha parvipennis (Stal 1876). Singing Insects of North America. https://orthsoc.org/sina/013a.htm
A Few Resources
Forrest, T. G., Lajoie, D. R., & Cusick, D. (2006, September 1). Calling Songs, Duets, and Auditory Tuning in Two Cryptic Katydids (Tettigoniidae: Phaneropterinae: Amblycorypha) . https://academic.oup.com/aesa/article/99/5/978/12202
Galliart, P. L. (1993). The acoustic behavior of the katydid Amblvcorvpha parvipennis and the function of acoustic interaction in sexual selection. [Doctoral dissertation, Iowa State University] https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/handle/20.500.12876/63356/
Galliart, P. L., & Shaw, K. C. (1996, August 24). The effect of variation in parameters of the male calling song of the katydid,Amblycorypha parvipennis (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae), on female phonotaxis and phonoresponse. SpringerLink. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02208973
Galliart, P. L., & Shaw, K. C. (1991, September). Role of Weight and Acoustic Parameters, including Nature of Chorusing, in the Mating Success of Males of the Katydid, Amblycorypha parvipennis (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae). JSTOR. .https://www.jstor.org/stable/3494840
Shaw, K. C., Galliart, P. L., & Smith, B. (1990). Acoustic Behavior of Amblycorypha parvipennis (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae). https://orthsoc.org/sina/s001lsg90.pdf
Walker, T. J., Forrest, T. G., & Spooner, J. D. (2003). The rotundifolia Complex of the Genus Amblycorypha (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae): Annals of the Entomological Society of America, https://orthsoc.org/sina/s001lwf03.pdf
.