Study on some selected species of Acrididae (Orthoptera) from district Dadu, Sindh-Pakistan

Abstract

Acrididae are commonly known as true grasshoppers. They are diverse group amongst order Orthoptera. The grasshoppers belonging to family Acrididae are pests of agricultural crops, forests, vegetables, orchards and wide variety of fruits. The true grasshoppers were captured from four talukas of district Dadu i-e: Taluka Dadu, Taluka K.N. Shah, Taluka Mehar and Taluka Johi during October 2018- July 2019. The collected specimens were 213 which were sorted out into Family Acrididae and 04 subfamilies i-e: Acridinae, Oxyinae, Oedipodinae and Cyrtacanthacridinae falling into 06 genera and 06 species i-e: Oxya velox (Fabricius, 1787), Cyrtacanthacris tartarica tartarica (Linnaeus, 1758), Anacridium rubrispinum Bey-Bienko, 1948, Acrida exaltata (Walker, 1859), Truxalis eximia eximia Eichwald, 1830 and Aiolopus thalassinus thalassinus (Fabricius, 1781). The highest population was observed of Oxya velox 27.23% followed by Acrida exaltata with 22.53% and Anacridium rubrispinum with 15.49%. While lowest population was observed in Truxalis eximia eximia with 9.38% followed by Cyrtacanthacris tatarica tartarica with 12.20% and Aiolopus thalassinus thalassinus with 13.14%. Beside this, morphological description along with distributional data and photographs are provided.