Species Anconia integra - Alkali Grasshopper

Anconia integra Scudder, 1876. Type Locality: Mojave Desert, California

Anconia caeruleipennis Bruner, 1906. Type Locality: Hawthorne, Nevada

Anconia grisea Bruner, 1906. Type Locality: Antelope Valley, California

Dull grayish, brownish, or green, often with small darker spotting and often with a pale "X" on the back of the pronotum. Slender in form with pronotum noticeably wide at the back, narrow in front, with hind angle above rounded, with no prominent ridges on top (median carina is present but weak); head small with relatively large eyes; legs long and very slender, with two to four dark spots on the top of the hind femur; wings clear, usually faintly bluish toward base. Males are much smaller than females.

Spaniacris is similar in appearance, but with eyes even larger, legs even longer and more slender, and with a prominent pattern of pale markings tending to stripes.

Other similar species that might be found with and confused with A. integra are considerably smaller; or, have the thorax less narrowed toward the front with the head proportionately larger, and mostly with hind wings more strongly pigmented, often with a dark cross band, and often broader.

Mostly in Mojave and Sonoran Deserts. In southern California (mostly desert regions; not along coast), southern Nevada, western Arizona, and sw. corner of Utah.

Varied, but usually alkaline and rather barren with perennial (usually shrubby) species of Chenopodiaceae.

Apparently overwinters as nymphs with adults in late winter/spring and a second brood in summer and autumn.

Apparently restricted to plants of the family Chenopodiaceae, including Atriplex, Suedia, and probably others.

Note that black and white line drawings (but not color paintings) of pronotum and head of this species and Anconia hebardi are switched in Otte's 'North American Grasshoppers' vol. 2 [1984] and at the Othoptera Species File on line.