INSECTS
The Coneheads
This group of the katydid family contains slender, grasshopperlike insects that have the forehead produced into a large cone and the face strongly receding, but which also possess long, slender antennae that distinguish them from the true or shorthorn grasshoppers. They constitute the subfamily Copiphorinae.
Fig. 27. A conehead grasshopper, or katydid, Neoconocephalus retusus
Upper figure, a male; lower, a female, with extremely long ovipositor
One of the commonest and most widely distributed of the larger coneheads is the species known as Neoconocephalus ensiger, or the "sword-bearing conehead." It is the female, however, that carries the sword; and it is not a sword either, but merely the immensely long egg-laying instrument properly called the ovipositor. The female conehead shown at B of Figure 27, has a similar organ, though she belongs to a species called retusus. The two species are very similar in all respects except for slight differences in the shape of the cone on the head. They look like slim, sharp-headed grasshoppers, 1½ to 1¾ inches in length, usually bright green in color, though sometimes brown.
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