''Parasanaa'' is a genus of
bush-cricket
Insects in the family Tettigoniidae are commonly called katydids (especially in North America) or bush crickets. They have previously been known as "long-horned grasshoppers". More than 8,000 species are known. Part of the suborder Ensifera, the ...
recorded from
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
,
Indochina
Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to th ...
,
Malesia
Malesia is a biogeographical region straddling the Equator and the boundaries of the Indomalayan and Australasian realms. It is a phytogeographical floristic region in the Paleotropical kingdom. It was first recognized as a distinct region ...
through to
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...
.
[ It is represented by a single species, ''Parasanaa donovani''][Beier (1944) ''Stett. Entomol. Z.'' 105: 89.][ ''Gryllus donovani''][''Parasanaa donovani'' (Donovan 1834)]
from Orthoptera Species File (OSF) Online. (Retrieved 3 April 2021). and ''Capnoptera donovani''. The species was described by Edward Donovan
Edward Donovan (1768 – 1 February 1837) was an Anglo-Irish writer, natural history illustrator, and amateur zoologist. He did not travel, but collected, described and illustrated many species based on the collections of other naturalists. Hi ...
in 1834.[Donovan (1834), ''The Naturalist's Repository''. volume 2. As cited on its entry i]
ZipcodeZoo.com
Description
The adult is black with lemon-yellow patches on the thorax
The thorax (: thoraces or thoraxes) or chest is a part of the anatomy of mammals and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen.
In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main di ...
and tegmina
A tegmen (: tegmina) designates the modified leathery front wing on an insect particularly in the orders Dermaptera (earwigs), Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets and similar families), Mantodea (praying mantis), Phasmatodea (stick and leaf insec ...
.[
]
Habits
It is found throughout August on the cactus
A cactus (: cacti, cactuses, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae (), a family of the order Caryophyllales comprising about 127 genera with some 1,750 known species. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, ...
on which it feeds. It is heavy and sluggish, generally still by day, nestled among the cactus thorn
Thorn(s) or The Thorn(s) may refer to:
Botany
* Thorns, spines, and prickles, sharp structures on plants
* ''Crataegus monogyna'', or common hawthorn, a plant species
Comics and literature
* Rose and Thorn, the two personalities of two DC Comi ...
s, with the front legs and the long antennae stretched forward onto the plant's surface, parallel to each other.
To escape predators it would rather drop from the cactus than take flight. It is more active at night, when it feeds and moves about.[
When the thorax is pinched, the insect squirts a slimy yellow fluid from two slits on the dorsal surface of the ]mesothorax
The mesothorax is the middle of the three segments of the thorax of hexapods, and bears the second pair of legs. Its principal sclerites (exoskeletal plates) are the mesonotum (dorsal), the mesosternum ( ventral), and the mesopleuron (lateral) ...
, with a range of three to four inches. One aperture may discharge at first, and the other after the insect is pinched again. Some fluid also oozes out from other apertures over the body and legs, and also from the stumps of broken-off legs.[
]
See also
* ''Sanaa
Sanaa, officially the Sanaa Municipality, is the ''de jure'' capital and largest city of Yemen. The city is the capital of the Sanaa Governorate, but is not part of the governorate, as it forms a separate administrative unit. At an elevation ...
'', a related genus similar in appearance and geographical distribution
* '' Poecilocerus pictus'', another squirting grasshopper[
* '']Aularches miliaris
''Aularches miliaris'' is a grasshopper species of the monotypic genus ''Aularches'', belonging to the family Pyrgomorphidae.(2013''Aularches miliaris'' (Carl Linnaeus, Linnaeus, 10th edition of Systema Naturae, 1758) from Orthoptera Species File ...
'', a foam-squirting grasshopper from Myanmar
Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...
[
* '']Tegra novaehollandiae
Tegra is a system on a chip (SoC) series developed by Nvidia for mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, and mobile Internet devices. The Tegra integrates an ARM architecture central processing unit (CPU), graphics pr ...
'', a liquid-oozing grasshopper[
* '']Bombardier beetle
Bombardier beetles are adephagan ground beetles (Carabidae) in the tribes Brachinini, Paussini, Ozaenini, or Metriini—more than 500 species altogether—which are most notable for the defense mechanism that gives them their name: when disturbe ...
'', which squirts a boiling mixture
References
External links
*Westwood (1848
colour drawing.
Via the OSF; Accessed on 2013-01-29.
*Hingston (1927
schematic drawing showing fluid exudation openings.
Via the OSF; Accessed on 2013-01-29.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q14029272, from2=Q10619345
Pseudophyllinae
Tettigoniidae genera
Monotypic Orthoptera genera
Orthoptera of Asia
Insects described in 1934