Adelaide Pyrgomorph
S10, Female, profile
Adelaide Pyrgomorph
S12, Female, profile
| Adelaide Pyrgomorph S10, Female, profile | | Adelaide Pyrgomorph S12, Female, profile | | ||
 | Class: | Animals (Animalia) - Jointed Legs (Arthropoda) - Insects (Insecta) | |||
| Order: | Crickets, Grasshoppers & Katydids (Orthoptera) | ||||
| Family: | Gaudy Grasshopper (Caelifera: Pyrgomorphidae) iNaturalist Observation | ||||
| Species: | Adelaide Pyrgomorph (Monistria discrepans) | ||||
| This Photo: | 🔍S11, Female, profile🔎 | ||||
Thank you Matthew Connors for identifying and David Muirhead for confirming the id of this species for us General Species Information: Found on Ellura (in the Murray Mallee, SA) and elsewhere Adult females we've measured are ~27-33mm, male ~17mm & juv' females ~16mm While we worked out the genus years ago, Matthew id'ed them to species He said "... Adelaide race. Oddly enough, about 1% of adults are fully-winged whereas the rest all have tiny wings like this." We've only seen flightless specimens. Later, Matthew also id'ed a couple of our juveniles as the same. We were thinking they might be Blistered Pyrgomorphs (M. pustulifera). They are quite similar and very variable. We've included shots of most speciemens to highlight differences & similarities. To help us sort them out he said "The pronotum isn't quite sculptured enough for M. pustulifera and the sides of the fastigium are convex rather than concave (although I'm not sure how variable these features are)" ... the fastigium is the spur on the top of the forehead ... "The key difference that should still be noticeable in nymphs is that the vertex (the section between the eyes) is raised above the eyes in M. pustulifera and is "flat or weakly convex" in M. discrepans." ... "I'm not sure how much the white rings vary in nymphs but in adult M. pustulifera even the ones on the side of the pronotum should have white rings". Thanks Matthew, very useful information that has allowed us to confirm all our specimens are the same species. We have only ever found adult males with females. Otherwise we find adult & juveniles females on their own. Robert has since said "Some M. discrepans also seem to have white around the spots", Comparing to M. pustulifera he said "Reliable differences are; Shape of head in profile. Shape of abdomen viewed from above. Rentz et al. state that it is pinched in M. discrepans, but so far we have not seen an image where this is visible." | |||||
| |||||
| |||||