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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Hexapods (Hexapoda) » Insects (Insecta) » Grasshoppers, Crickets, Katydids (Orthoptera) » Long-horned Orthoptera (Ensifera) » Katydids, Camel Crickets, and relatives (Tettigoniidea) » Hump-winged Crickets (Prophalangopsidae) » Cyphoderris » Great Grig (Cyphoderris monstrosa)

Species Cyphoderris monstrosa - Great Grig

Fat GrassHopper?? - Cyphoderris monstrosa - female

Golden cricket - Cyphoderris monstrosa - male

Parasitized by a horsehair worm/Nematomorpha - Cyphoderris monstrosa

Classification

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)

Class Insecta (Insects)

Order Orthoptera (Grasshoppers, Crickets, Katydids)

Suborder Ensifera (Long-horned Orthoptera)

Infraorder Tettigoniidea (Katydids, Camel Crickets, and relatives)

Family Prophalangopsidae (Hump-winged Crickets)

Genus Cyphoderris

Species monstrosa (Great Grig)

Other Common Names

Monster Haglid

Explanation of Names

MONSTROSA: like a monster; very large and abnormally shaped or hideous (this species is the largest of the 3 in North America)

Numbers

one of three species in this genus in North America; uncommon in appropriate habitat

Size

body length 20-30 mm

Identification

male dark gray dorsally, pale whitish ventrally, with short wings humped up and wrinkled like a loosely-folded blanked heaped on the insect's back; male subgenital plate with a ventrally-directed process shaped like the nail-pulling claw of a hammer

female either lacks wings or has them reduced to small stubs

Range

southern British Columbia and Alberta, south to northern California and southern Idaho (see distribution map)

Habitat

coniferous forests containing Lodgepole Pine, Englemann Spruce, and Mountain Hemlock; adults hide beneath leaf litter during the day, and become active at night, climbing tree trunks and continuing high into the branches to feed, sing (males), and mate

Season

adults from June to August

Food

staminate flowers of coniferous trees, and flower parts & pollen of broadleaved shrubs; sometimes eats fruit and small insects

Life Cycle

overwinters as a late-instar nymph or young adult in burrow in ground; one generation per year

Remarks

males stridulate to attract females or to announce territory; males also have fierce fights over territory and/or females

Internet References

Singing Insects of North America

Contributed by Robin McLeod on 29 November, 2005 - 3:39am
Additional contributions by metrioptera
Last updated 19 February, 2014 - 6:52am

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