Speckled

After another busy morning, we whisked the Boy Wonder back over to the Principality, where his mother had prepared a lovely lunch of fajitas with all the trimmings. It was nice to spend some time with the whole family, but pretty soon R and I had to be on our way back to the Shire. 

By the time we arrived I was tired and extremely irritable, and spent a while stomping around complaining that I hadn't taken a postable photo all day. Happily R was saved from having to listen to any more of this nonsense once I spotted this female Speckled Bush-cricket on one of the viburnums - though (rookie error) I pounced on her with such enthusiasm that I very nearly lost her again. Like the Southern Oak Bush-cricket I posted a few days ago, she only has vestigial wings and can't fly, but she strode away rapidly on those long legs and disappeared behind the shoot on which she'd been standing, and which I couldn't easily turn one-handed while working the camera with the other. It was just good luck that she re-emerged of her own volition a few seconds later.

A quick glance between the two images will show you how very different these two species are. They're about the same length, but the Speckled Bush-cricket is much broader and more robust-looking than the Southern Oak. It's also a much stronger leaf green colour, with dark speckles all over it that are diagnostic, whereas the Southern Oak is a much paler jade green, and looks almost translucent. The two-tone green and brown fore and middle legs of the Speckled Bush-cricket and its thin, dark dorsal stripe are also quite different to the Southern Oak's entirely green legs and broad, pale dorsal stripe. Finally, this female Speckled Bush-cricket has a broad, curved ovipositor that resembles a scimitar, whereas that of the Southern Oak Bush-cricket (not shown well in the dorsal view I posted) is long, narrow and slightly upcurved, and looks more like a cavalry sabre.