Pholidoptera fallax
Southern Strauchschrecke, Pholidoptera fallax, males
The Southern Bush Cricket ( Pholidoptera fallax ) is a long horned grasshopper of the subfamily of Tettigoniinae within the superfamily of katydids.
Features
The Southern Strauchschrecke is built very strong, has a thick abdomen and is relatively long legs. Her neck shield is extended to the rear and covers the front third of the short wings. The basic color is dark brown, often the body is slightly tinted purple or reddish. Over the entire body run dark drawings, these are particularly pronounced in the head and the thorax. Above the gray-brown compound eye a black spot above and behind this he is light limited. The pronotum lateral lobes are black or black-brown to black-gray colored and bright wide margins yellowish white. The wings are dark brown in color and partially veined bright. The lower thorax is black spotted. The belly is yellowish. The rear legs are usually monochromatic than the rest of the body, but have a more or less weak reticular mottling, which is getting darker towards the base of the leg. While the front leg pairs are irregularly dotted black, only the hinge regions are black on the jump legs. In the male, the relatively long Cerci are perforated in the first third. The female has a slightly but significantly curved ovipositor, which measures about 11 to 13 millimeters. Reached the Southern Strauchschrecke as females have a body length of 17 to 23 millimeters, as males it is 15 to 18 millimeters long.
Lifestyle and dissemination
The Southern Strauchschrecke occurs mainly on forest clearings and in bushes. Their range extends from the south of France on almost the whole of Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the western Balkan Peninsula, to Serbia and Montenegro, Macedonia and Greece and surrounding islands in the Aegean Sea. The northernmost localities are in the eastern and southern Austria and in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland. Imagines occur from July to October.
System
The Southern Bush Cricket was originally described fallax by the scientific name Thamnotrizon. Only later it was placed in the genus Pholidoptera. A synonym of the species is Thamnotrizon austriacus Türk, 1860.