Green-striped Grasshopper

Green and brown phases. Females usually green, males usually brown. Wings faint yellow when spread, smoky brown to nearly black towards tip. Strong pronotal ridge. Green (or brown) stripe near the border of front wings. Southern and summer individuals are more strongly patterned, often with dark bars across part of front wings and on top of hind femora, and with the dark coloring on the hind wings more developed. Southern populations have been separated as a species C. australior , but are treated as a weakly differentiated subspecies here, since there is no possible way to draw a line between the intergrading southern and northern populations. Inland from the coastal plain in the southeastern states, assignment of individuals to one or the other subspecies is somewhat arbitrary, where individuals in the same populations can look like either subspecies, or intermediate in character. Generally, in most species with long wings, the instars can be told by looking at the wing pads. Counting antennal segments can work too, but if you don't already have a reference, you won't know how many segments are in the antennae of each instar without actually rearing them and checking for yourself. I could look up what is average, but it varies a lot from species to species. Anyway, the younger they are, the fewer the antenna segments. Species with short wings go through roughly the same development of the wings, but so much reduced in size that it is difficult to make much use of the wings unless you already are familiar with the development of the species. I think the upward flip at the 4th instar is pretty universal though. And, of course, it is useless to look at wing development on wingless species. Males and sometimes females crepitate with a continuous buzz, but not during every flight, and the sound is relatively faint.