EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Bizarre and Little-Known Bush Cricket

Bush Cricket (Deracanthella xilinensis), Family Tettigoniidae
Gobi Desert, Mongolia

Explanation:  While hiking the Flaming Cliffs of the Gobi Desert in southern Mongolia, I happened upon this bizarre-appearing bush cricket.  Clearly being a female, extending from her abdomen is her ovipositor, the tubular organ used to lay eggs.  

This species is only one of two belonging to the parent genus Deracanthella.  The genus is quite unlike other members of its bush cricket family, which includes katydids.  

And this particular species apparently was identified only as recently as 1983 (Ju-Peng 1983).

I could find no information on the biology or ecology of this species, nor if it is common or rare.  If rare, it may qualify for conservation protection.  

Apparently it ranges mostly, or only, in the Gobi Desert of central Asia. 
   
  

 

Information:
     Ju-Peng, L.  1983.  A new species of Deracanthinae (Orthoptera: Tettigonioidea: Bradyporidae).  Acta Entomologica Sinica