The date field is useful for helping to understand phenology: when the insects emerge, pass through intermediate instars, reach maturity, mate, etc. This appears to be a female nymph but that stage might occur at various times of year for all we know. Part of the utility of BugGuide is to provide documentation of geographic distributions and phenology of species.

Moved from Timema.

The clear stripes and location here point to the likelihood of T. poppense or...since this is a female...the associated parthenogenetic "look-alike" species T. douglasi. Males have asymmetric "crescent wrench-like" terminalia, while females have symmetric terminalia (i.e. two tapering, roughly conical cerci). For more details, see comments under the post below...they apply equally well in your case.



Also, check out this CalPhotos post.

If you saw more than one female in the same local population, and with no males riding on top of them, then the likelihood would be T. douglasi here. (If you could get a photo of such a group all together, and could post it on BugGuide, that would be great!) If you saw many females (e.g four or more) and no males, an ID of T. douglasi would be nearly certain.

On the other hand, if you also find males, that would point to T. poppense.

See the info page for lots more interesting info on these gals (and sometimes guys :-).

Moved from ID Request.