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Photo#591071
Straight-lanced Meadow Katydid - Conocephalus strictus - female

Straight-lanced Meadow Katydid - Conocephalus strictus - Female
Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association, Pennington, Mercer County, New Jersey, USA
September 16, 2011
Does the orientation of the wings indicate that it is an adult or nymph?

Found using a flashlight at night.

wing development
Several good drawings of wing development have been published, but there don't seem to be too many of those available on the internet yet. The development in Katydids is much like in Grasshoppers, but in Crickets the nymphal wing "pads" look a bit different. Both Katydids and Grasshoppers I think usually have five instars, and that is what is usually shown in drawings, but sometimes there are only four (rare) or there are sometimes more (six is common, more than that is probably rare). When there are extra molts, it is often hard to tell the middle instars apart, and only the first couple and the last one or two are easy to tell. Anyway, the wing orientation is distinctly different in nymphs from adults. In young instars the wings are little nubs on the side of the body, barely developed, hardly noticeable, and point down (and often back some too). In later instars the wings are held up and back laying flat and unfolded against the body, with the hind wings (fan-shaped or triangular with radiating main veins) held over and usually hiding the front wings (the "tegmina" - narrow with a more net-like vein pattern). In these older nymphs you can see the veins in the wings, but the wings are thick and opaque and only the big main veins are obvious. Sometimes the older nymphs can flap these wings a bit, but usually they don't. In adults when they aren't using the wings, it is the front ones that are covering, with the hind wings folded like a pleated fan under them. In short-winged species, it is more difficult, because everything is reduced in size, and sometimes the hind wings are missing entirely (or not big enough to hide the front wings in the nymphs), but the orientation and veining are still pretty much the same at each stage. In wingless species it gets more difficult (especially in photos), since the wings can't help. However, size, proportions, and often the number of antenna segments (they increase in number with each molt) all can help. Usually adults are colored differently and have "harder" bodies than nymphs (though in some species I often can't tell older nymphs from adults in a photo alone).

Some other drawings of grasshopper development are here, here, here, and here. The first two are the most useful. The wing veins usually start to be distinctly visible in the third instar (but usually don't show in the drawings). If there are six instars, the extra one usually looks most like the third or fourth.

I couldn't find the equivalent for Katydids, and I've never seen such a drawing for a short-winged species. There are also lots of photos of nymphs (all grasshoppers, but helps in getting the "feel" for different instars) at Robert Pfadt's on line 'Field Guide to Western Grasshoppers.

Oh, and some of the photos proclaimed to be "nymphs" that are shown on the internet (and even in the occasional printed book) are really short-winged adults - so it can be confusing to sort it all out.

 
Thanks!
This helps a lot. I'm sure I'll still get some wrong, but I should be able to make a more educated guess with this info.

Moved
Moved from ID Request. Not great, but adds NJ.

definitely an adult
looks like Conocephalus strictus

 
Thanks
I think I remember a diagram showing the way the wings change orientation with each molt, but this was all I could find.

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