Differential responses to double-stranded RNA injection and feeding in Mormon cricket (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae).

The Mormon cricket, Anabrus simplex, is a flightless katydid, one of the major devastating rangeland pests in several states of the western United States. During the past few years, their sudden and periodic outbreaks into massive migratory bands caused significant economic losses to the rangeland forage and agricultural crops, particularly grain crops. Current population management methods rely heavily on broad-spectrum chemical insecticides, which could be toxic to nontargets, and even the targeted species might develop resistance in the long run.

The time course of behavioural phase change in the Central American locust Schistocerca piceifrons.

Locusts exhibit an extreme form of phenotypic plasticity and can exist as two alternative phenotypes, known as solitarious and gregarious phases. These phases, which can transform from one to another depending on local population density, show distinctly different behavioural characteristics. The proximate mechanisms of behavioural phase polyphenism have been well studied in the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria and the migratory locust Locusta migratoria, and what is known in these species is often treated as a general feature of locusts.

Morphology and Phylogenetic Position of Two New Gregarine Species (Apicomplexa: Eugregarinorida) Parasitizing the Lubber Grasshopper Taeniopoda centurio (Drury, 1770) (Insecta: Orthoptera: Romaleidae) in Mexico.

Eugregarines are understudied apicomplexan parasites of invertebrates inhabiting marine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments. Most currently known terrestrial eugregarines have been described parasitizing the gut from less than 1% of total insect diversity, with a high likelihood that the remaining insect species are infected. Eugregarine diversity in orthopterans (grasshoppers, locusts, katydids, and crickets) is still little known.