Common name - Wyoming toothpick grasshopper (Heifer, 1972).
Geographic distribution - from Wyoming spreading south to southern California, Mexico, western Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska (Otte,1981). In Colorado P. wyomingensis can be found from the valley bottoms of the eastern plains to the eastern mountain valleys (Hebard, 1929).
Habitat - tall grass in low, wet areas (Ball et al., 1942).
Food habits - eats coarse grasses, especially western wheatgrass and bluegrass. Also observed eating needleandthread, blue grama, sand dropseed, threeawn, sunsedge, Indian ricegrass and milkvetch (Ball et al., 1942; Hebard, 1925; Kumar et al., 1976).
Nymph - five instars (Scoggan and Brusven, 1972).
Adult - medium size. Shape is slender and grass-like. Color is variable but is uniform and light; either light-green, gray, lightbrown, pink or yellow. Face is extremely slanted. Vertex is cone-shaped, elongate and extends a considerable distance in front of eyes. Eyes are oblong. Antennae are sword-shaped and close to eyes. A whitish stripe extends from the lower border of the eyes to the bases of the middle legs. Dorsal posterior edge of pronotum is rounded. Tegmina are lance-shaped and abbreviated, reaching the fifth abdominal segment. Tegmina are transparent to weakly colored. Wings are transparent. Abdomen is long, cylindrical. Subgenital plate of male is very pointed (Coppock, 1962).
Seasonal history - adults can be found from July to October (Ball et al., 1942).
Abundance and importance - common over most of the Great Plains. It seldom occurs in high densities and is of little economic importance (Hebard, 1925; Scoggan and Brusven, 1972).
Next Species: Phlibostroma quadrimaculatum
Previous Species: Opeia obscura
Biology of Common Colorado Grasshoppers List
Biology of Common Colorado Grasshoppers
Grasshoppers of Colorado Contents
