Bioacoustics of Schistocerca cohni

Biology. Not much is known about S. cohni . The specimens were collected from open woodlands with a thick growth of medium­height weeds. Nothing is known about its feeding preferences, but the overall ecology and behavior are likely to be similar to other species in the Alutacea Group. Taxonomic Discussion. This species was initially discovered during a morphological phylogenetic analysis of Schistocerca ( Song 2004a ) . The specimens were identified by Dirsh as S. obscura (Fabricius) , but they clearly lacked a characteristic subgenital plate of S. obscura . Further examinations on both internal and external morphological structures revealed that it was a new species overlooked by previous taxonomists. The collecting localities ( Figure 3 A) indicate that this species is widespread in various habitats. Song (2004a) found that S. cohni ( S. new sp. in Figure 2 ) is phylogenetically closely related to the species in the Alutacea Group. In fact, this species possesses all the synapomorphies uniting the Alutacea Group, namely, round subgenital plate, quadrate cerci, pronotal granules, and constricted zygoma ( Song 2004b ). Schistocerca cohni is superficially similar to S. lineata , but has a distinctly different epiproct where a pair of tubercles is absent. This loss character is also found in S. albolineata and S. obscura , but S. cohni is distinct from these two species because the apical lobes of subgenital plate are not flared outwardly.