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Taeniopoda sp.
Large green and black lubber grasshopper, adult, approximately 8 cm long. Heavy and slow moving.
In a garden on the edge of some woods, outskirts of town of Teopisca, Chiapas.
Many have these pattern on the legs and on the wings. Considering the variability you have to look at the color of femurs, knees, legs, antennae, antennae tip, backshield, looking for stripes and patches on top or at the side, not to forget size.
Maybe food, maybe light source, maybe age of the hopper?? And you have always some extend of variability within the genus and species.
To bayucca: Thank you!!! It does look like a Taeniopoda as you suggested for one of the web sites. Maybe the Monterey specimens have a yellower coloring because of the food source? Ours is very green, but otherwise looks very similar.
Tricky one. It is in my eyes not Taeniopoda eques (darker), not Varipennis (no black stripes on the backshield), not (?) Auricornis (shorter black antennae tip). There are obviously some other ones around.
Varipennis: http://www.flickr.com/photos/artour_a/27...
Auricornis: http://www.americaninsects.net/o/taeniop...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/happyhels77...
Might be yours?: http://www.pbase.com/tmurray74/image/357...
Most probably NOT Eques: http://www.birdspiders.com/gallery/index...
Spotted on Sep 24, 2006
Submitted on Aug 29, 2012
+1
