Shelby Grice‡, JoVonn Hill‡Corresponding author: Shelby Grice ( smg624@msstate.edu ) Corresponding author: JoVonn Hill ( jgh4@entomology.msstate.edu ) © Shelby Grice, JoVonn Hill. This is an open access preprint distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation:
Grice S, Hill J (2024) Disjunct distribution of Hesperotettix speciosus (Orthoptera: Acrididae) from the Black Belt Prairie of Alabama, United States. ARPHA Preprints. https://doi.org/10.3897/arphapreprints.e133571 |  |
Inventories of the flora and insect fauna of the Black Belt Prairie of Mississippi and Alabama have documented disjunct populations of species broadly distributed in the Great Plains, including two grasshopper species. During a recent survey of a large privately-owned prairie remnant in Sumter Co., Alabama we documented a disjunct population of a third grasshopper species — Hesperotettix speciosus, extending the known distribution of this species significantly eastward. The discovery of this population is surprising due to the number of previous survey efforts of the Black Belt, Alabama, and Mississippi overall and exemplifies the importance of conservation on private lands.