''Galidacris'' is a genus of

grasshoppers Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are amongst what are possibly the most ancient living groups of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grassh ...

belonging to the family

Acrididae Acrididae are the predominant family of grasshoppers, comprising some 10,000 of the 11,000 species of the entire suborder Caelifera. The Acrididae are best known because all locusts (swarming grasshoppers) are of the Acrididae. The subfamily Oedi ...

. They are found in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

within

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

and

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

Behavior

The males of the genus have been recorded approaching a female, moving their hind legs (knee-waving) and antennae (twitch-back) silently. The reasoning behind this requires further study. This behavior is a mark of

convergent evolution Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last comm ...

as members in more distantly related grasshoppers share this behavior, while other closer genera do not.

Species

* '' Galidacris agilis'' (Descamps & Amédégnato, 1972) * '' Galidacris cordillerae'' (Descamps & Amédégnato, 1972) * '' Galidacris eckardtae'' (Günther, 1940) * '' Galidacris variabilis'' (Descamps & Amédégnato, 1972)

References

{{Taxonbar, from= Q10502204 Acrididae Acrididae genera