An Intensely Bright Red Nymph of the Katydid: Caedicia Simplex (Walker, F., 1869) Tettigoniidae: Phaneropterinae

The Weta 40: 27-28 (2010) 27 An intensely bright red nymph of the Katydid: Caedicia simplex (Walker, F., 1869) Tettigoniidae: Phaneropterinae Gorton, D. and Willis, S. 169 Standen St., Karori, Wellington. 2Beach Road, Te Horo. A uniformly, intense, bright, magenta red nymph of the Kat ydid , Caedicia simplex (Walker, F., 1869), has appeared in the garden of Sara Willis daily since 7th June2010, and has been observed daily by her fro m then unt il 8 September 2010. The nymph first appeared on flowering wall flowers (Cheiranthus sp.) where it was Figure 1: Caedicia simplex nymph of the bright red morph in a Te Horo garden; a, b: diapausing nymph, 10 mm long (photographed on 11. 8. 2010); c, d, e: active nymph, not long after moulting photographed, and was photographed again on a rosebush on 11 August 2010, when it was coloured a uniform intense red, even on the pleurae and venter, and was 10 mm lo ng (Fig.1:a,b). The colour is similar in both sets of 28 Diana Gorton and Sarah Willis photographs. Throughout June and July it was very sluggish, appearing to be in semi- hibernat ion or incomplete diapause, and only moved if she prodded it. During inclement weather, it sheltered under a leaf, but it came out into sunlight in fine weather. After August 23rd, it became much more active and moved its antennae about. Its intense red coloration had remained constant until 28th August, when, following a moult, the venter became pale pink and the head from apex to labrum had lengthened. It was photographed again on 28th August 2010 (Fig.1: c, d, e). C. simplex, which occurs also in Australia, usually has nymphs coloured bright green, the adult being a duller, matt green. Ramsay (1960) however found several nymphs of C. simplex, of which three were intense, brilliant, magenta red, some were the usual bright green, and two were intermediate between the green and red forms. (None of these, however, was as uniformly bright red as the specimen illustrated here.) When Ramsay kept his three magenta nymphs indoors, the red colour became much reduced when they moulted, the penultimate nymphs being bright green. Ramsay noted that R. Ordish of the (then) Dominion Museum, Wellington, informed him that that the nymphs of C. simplex are sometimes pink if they have been feeding on red berries or flowers. However, this seems unlikely, because the chemical pigment in the katydid differs from that in plants (Ramsay, 1960). The North American oblong-winged katydid Amblycorypha oblongifolia has a rare bright pinkish-red morph, which is coloured the same shocking pink magenta in both its nymphal and adult stages and which, in colour, closely resemble the Te Horo individual (Marshall, 2006, p. 80, figures 1-3). Red C. simplex nymphs, however, apparently invariably lose their uniformly brilliant red coloration when they become adults. Acknowledgements We are grateful to Dr. P. Dunstan for photographs in Figure 1: a, b; to Kirsty Willis for photographs in Figure 1: c, d, e; and to A. C. Harris and P. M. Johns for discussio n. References Marshal, S. 2006. Insects: their natural history and diversity, with a photographic guide to insects of eastern North America. 718 p. Firefly Books Ltd., Canada. Ramsay, G. W. 1960. Unusual colouration of nymphs of the katydid, Caedicia simplex (Orthoptera: Tettigonioidea). Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand 8(3): 595-596. .

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