''Phaneroptera nana'', common name southern sickle bush-cricket, is a species in the family
Tettigoniidae
Insects in the family Tettigoniidae are commonly called katydids (especially in North America), or bush crickets. They have previously been known as "long-horned grasshoppers". More than 8,000 species are known. Part of the suborder Ensifera, t ...
and subfamily
Phaneropterinae
The Phaneropterinae, the sickle-bearing bush crickets or leaf katydids, are a subfamily of insects within the family Tettigoniidae. Nearly 2,060 species in 85 genera throughout the world are known. They are also known as false katydids or round-h ...
.
[Eades D.C., Otte D., Naskrecki P.]
Orthoptera Species File Online
/ref> It has become an invasive species
An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...
in California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
where it may be called the Mediterranean katydid.
Distribution and habitat
This bush cricket is native to mainland Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, the Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
and North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
. The Indo-Malayan species ''Phaneropera subcarinata'', classified by Bolívar, is morphologically similar to ''P. nana,'' and was classified under the ''P. nana'' name by Carl Brunner von Wattenwyl
Carl Brunner von Wattenwyl (13 June 1823, Bern – 24 August 1914, Kirchdorf) was a Swiss entomologist who specialised in Orthoptera, and a botanist.
Von Wattenwyl was a postmaster. He described many new taxa of Orthoptera.
His collection is ...
. As an invasive species, it has spread to the San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
and may be widespread in the Los Angeles Basin
The Los Angeles Basin is a sedimentary basin located in Southern California, in a region known as the Peninsular Ranges. The basin is also connected to an anomalous group of east-west trending chains of mountains collectively known as the Tr ...
, with records of its presence in California dating from at least 1952. In addition, it has been recorded in South America and hypothesized in the Annals of Carnegie Museum
''Annals of Carnegie Museum'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. It was established in 1901 by the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Institute. The journal is distributed both in print and onli ...
to have spread via shipping.
It mainly inhabits sunny and dry habitats, especially shrubs and low branches of trees.
Description
The adult males grow up to long, while females can reach of length. In both sexes, the basic coloration of the body is light green, with many small black spots. The eyes are bright orange. In some individuals, there may be a brown dorsal stripe where the forewings ( tegmina) meet, though the stripe does not extend onto the pronotum.[Ostravska Univerzita]
''P. nana'' and ''P. falcata'' are similar in appearance and may be confused for each other in parts of Europe, and elsewhere where the ranges of the two species overlap. These two species may be distinguished by the appearance of the male subgenital plate and the protonum. In ''P. nana'', the male subgenital plate tapers near the end of the body, while in ''P. falcata'', it diverges into two lobes. The protonum of ''P. nana'' is narrower than it is tall, while in ''P. falcata'', the protonum is roughly the same width and length, if not longer than tall.
Reproduction
The Mediterranean katydid (Phaneroptera nana) female sings in response to the male, prompting the male to move towards the female. This is unique to the species, because in other species of katydids, it is usually the female moving towards the male in response to hearing their chirps. However, because the females stay static while the males move to locate them, the females are at less risk of encountering threats and predators. However, the males will not decide to interact with a female unless they illicit a response within 60 milliseconds, ensuring that the female is close enough to them.
The females are selective of the males they respond to, and generally they prefer longer chirps. At least two chirps from the males are needed for the female to entertain the males and reply to them. However, more chirps than that from the males do not make the females more likely to duet with the males.
The female Mediterranean katydids lay their eggs in the lamina of plants. the female does this by bending her abdomen and chewing on the lamina to create an opening. The eggs she lays around 3mm in size on average. Those eggs usually hatch in summertime but that can vary. The timing means that ''P. nana'' is usually easily encountered through the summer and fall seasons.
Diet
''P. nana'' is known to cause damage in pear orchards, feeding on pears that have not ripened. In addition, it has been recorded to consume the pupae of ''L. botrana''.
Gallery
File:Phaneropterinae - Phaneroptera nana..JPG, ''Phaneroptera nana'', nymph
File:Phaneropterinae - Phaneroptera sp. - neanide.JPG, ''Phaneroptera cf. nana'', nymph
File:Phaneroptera nana02.jpg, ''Phaneroptera nana'', female
File:Phaneroptera nana female (7973618058).jpg, ''Phaneroptera nana'', adult female grooming foreleg
References
External links
Sound recordings of ''Phaneroptera nana'' on BioAcoustica
{{Taxonbar, from=Q743071
Phaneropterinae
Insects described in 1853
Orthoptera of Africa
Orthoptera of Asia
Orthoptera of Europe