Thomas' Slender Grasshopper

Confused badly in the literature with a similar, but different species (see Trimerotropis unnamed species A). T. gracilis is distinguished from the other by having hind wings distinctly yellow with a prominent dark cross band. The wings are usually longer. And, it ticks loudly when it flies. The unnamed species has nearly clear wings tinted bluish, greenish, or most often yellowish, with no band or a blurred indication of one. It makes a pulsed crackling sound when it flies, and it flies faster and further. Relationships between the two types need further study. Trimerotropis sparsa is somewhat similar, especially east from the Rockies where it may have yellow hind wings and a dark band across the wings. The hind wings of T. sparsa are generally more slender. T. sparsa is less strongly sculptured on the head and pronotum with the shoulders of the pronotum rounded or nearly so, and not sharply angled as in T. gracilis . In T. gracilis the pronotum also has the median crest sharp and raised and bilobed on the front part (it is lower and much less pronounced on T. sparsa ). T. gracilis usually has a streaky speckled appearance, while T. sparsa does not. T. sparsa usually has dark bands at least faintly developed across the tegmina (front wings). In most areas T. sparsa has blue wings without a band, and T. gracilis has yellow with a dark band; however, wing coloring in T. sparsa is highly varied, especially in the Upper Rio Grande, upper Arkansas, and upper Missouri drainages. T. gracilis is a species primarily of sagebrush covered country in the Rocky Mountain and Colorado Plateaus regions, and occurs also in appropriate environments in the northern Great Plains.