Page:Insects - Their Ways and Means of Living.djvu/82



This group of the katydid family contains slender, grasshopperlike insects that have the forehead produced into a large cone and the face strongly receding, but which also possess long, slender antennae that distinguish them from the true or shorthorn grasshoppers. They constitute the subfamily Copiphorinae.

One of the commonest and most widely distributed of the larger coneheads is the species known as Neoconocephalus ensiger, or the "sword-bearing conehead." It is the female, however, that carries the sword; and it is not a sword either, but merely the immensely long egg-laying instrument properly called the ovipositor. The female conehead shown at B of Figure 27, has a similar organ, though she belongs to a species called retusus. The two species are very similar in all respects except for slight differences in the shape of the cone on the head. They look like slim, sharp-headed grasshoppers, 1½ to 1¾ inches in length, usually bright green in color, though sometimes brown.