Species Orchelimum pulchellum - Handsome Meadow Katydid

Body length 18-23 mm (not counting ovipositor in females)

Note white face with brownish to reddish mottling on edges, brown legs, diffuse turquoise stripe on upper sides back along wings. Eyes usually blue--fairly distinctive. Compare cerci of male if possible with illustrations in Singing Insects of North America.

Very similar to Blacklegged Meadow Katydid - Orchelimum nigripes. Singing Insects of North America Range maps (Black-legged, Handsome) show that the ranges do overlap in the eastern Pennsylvania/central eastern seaboard area.

Rehn, Trans. Am. Entomol. Soc. 41: 11-83 differentiate these two based on pronotal shape. Keying couplet for males is on pp. 24-25, quoting:

D. Tooth of cercus not strongly adpressed against proximal portaion of sinuate carina. Caudal margin of lateral lobes of pronotum with humeral sinus appreciably indicated and remainder of margin weakly arcuate. Tibiae not blackish.---> O. bullatum (Texas) or O. laticauda = pulchellum

D. Tooth of cercus strongly adpressed against proximal portion of sinuate carina. Caudal margin of lateral lobes of pronotum with little indication of humeral sinus and remainder of margin distinctly sinuate. All tibiae blackish. (Ventro-external margin of caudal femora armed.)---> O. nigripes

Also, in O. nigripes eyes of living insects are reddish rather than bluish.

Southeastern United States. East and south of Appalachians; north as far as New York; west as far as Mississippi. Meets and intergrades with O. nigripes south of Appalachians (mostly in Mississippi and Alabama).

In NJ, DE, MD, DC, western VA, western NC, and most of SC, GA, AL & FL ending with the southwestern part of MS.(1)

Brushy areas, shrubs, especially in wetland habitats bordering lakes, streams, etc.

Mid-summer to fall. August-frost (North Carolina), June-November (north Florida)