A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE
ORTHOPTERA
The order Orthoptera, including the Euplexoptera and Dermaptera, contains by far the smallest number of species of any order of the Insecta as represented in Britain. Malcolm Burr, in his recent work on the British Orthoptera, enumerates not more than fifty species in all, and many of these are undoubtedly of recent introduction. The Orthoptera include such familiar and, indeed, generally unpopular insects as the cockroaches, the earwigs, and the grasshoppers.
The order has been specially studied as it occurs locally by Mr. E. G. Burgess Sopp of Birkdale, to whom is due the substance of the notes which follow.
As the economy of many of the Orthoptera, especially of the cockroaches, has been extensively modified to suit that association with mankind which they in so many cases unfortunately adopt, they have been particularly the subjects of accidental immigration. Ports such as Liverpool and Manchester have thus been the avenues for the introduction of many exotic species, of which some have been able to establish themselves with more or less success in limited areas; but the greater number, if they succeed in escaping instant destruction at the hands of some unsympathetic discoverer, are only occasionally noticed and recorded by the entomologist before they succumb to a climate to which they find it impossible to adapt themselves.
The following are the members of this order which have been recorded from Lancashire:—
EUPLEXOPTERA
(Earwigs)
Labia minor, L. Southport, Warrington, Liverpool
Forficula auricularia, L. Generally abundant
DERMAPTERA
Blattidæ (Cockroaches)
- Ectobia lapponica, L. Liverpool
- —livida, F.
Although a few members of the genus Ectobia, including these two species, are properly indigenous, still it is probable that these records are of imported exotic specimens, as the normal range of the genus in England is exclusively southern
- Phyllodromia germanica, L.
- Periplanata americana, L.
- —australasiæ, F.
All recently introduced species which have apparently succeeded to some extent in establishing themselves in a few localities; have occurred in Liverpool, Manchester, and some of the other large Lancashire towns
- Stylopyga (Blatta) orientalis L. The familiar 'blackbeetle' or our kitchens is only too abundant everywhere. There are also a few records of the occurrence of strictly exotic species from the Liverpool docks, such as Blabera gigantea, L., and species of the genera Epilampra and Panchlora, but these can in no sense be considered as part of the fauna of Lancashire
Acrididæ (Grasshoppers)
Stenobothus viridulus, L.
—bicolor, Char.Generally distributed —parallelus, Zett. Southport district
- Gomphocerus maculatus, Thun. Southport district
- Tettix bipunctatus, L. Liverpool, Hightown, Southport
- Acridium ægyptium, L. Certainly introduced; is also recorded from Southport
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