Pseudothericles jallae jallae (Griffini, 1897); or the importance of angle.

After a month or so of crouching down to see yet another Aiolopus thalassinus or generically brown cricket nymphs, it becomes very easy to dismiss something small and dully coloured that hops away as you walk, even in such promising locations as game-ranches on the outskirts of Lusaka, Zambia.

Sometimes, though, that tiny thump and that brownish blur reward your attention with this:

Photographed in Lilayi district, Lusaka Province, Zambia, in December 2013, using Olympus E-420, Zuiko 40-150mm lens and 2 KOOD magnifiers.

I'd like to be able to offer common names beyond the suborder-inclusive grasshopper, but none of my books are being helpful there, and I get more results on Google searching for my own name in quote-marks than I do searching for the family.

So we'll have to work at it. It is actually called:

Pseudothericles jallae jallae

(Griffini, 1897)

The basic roots there are Pseudo (or false) and Thericles, from a related genus. Breaking that down, I'd take a wild stab at it being an extension of a greek word for summer, θέρος (Theros), so we'll say that the genus Thericles are 'Summer Hoppers', and our own Pseudothericles becomes a false summer hopper. 

Then comes jallae. Now, if we play with google for a minute, jalla could be from the arabic:

  جلا

 (dj-U-ll-ah), which has a number of meanings, mostly to do with cleaning, fixing or solving, but I rather suspect that it was named for the Italian missionary Luigi Jalla, who was certainly involved with reptiles and amphibians (keeping brief my comment on how poorly those groups fare when they encounter the religious), and probably also made himself known to the entomologists working in the region. 

That would make the aforementioned Pseudothericles jallae jallae's brand new 'common' name: 

Jalla's False Summer-hopper (nominate ssp.)

 And while I'm not going to translate that all into Chewa right now, the more generic Chewa/Nyanja words for grasshopper include: Chikhwiya, with or without the Chi, Thuli and my personal favourite, Tsokonombwe. 

So another view of our little tsokonombwe:

 And with that, it belongs, phylogenetically speaking, to: 

- Pseudothericleini

- Thericleinae          

- Thericleidae           

- Eumastacoidea          

- Acridomorpha             

See also  Humbe tenuicornis, Lobosceliana loboscelis, Cyathosternum prehensile and Heteropternis thoracica.

- Acrididea                       

 - Caelifera                          

- Orthoptera                         

See also Stictogryllacris punctata, Enyaliopsis and Tettigonia viridissima.

- Panorthoptera                       

- Orthopterida                           

- Polyorthoptera                          

- Anartioptera                                

- Polyneoptera                                 

See also Sibylla. 

- Neoptera                                          

See also Dichtha inflata, Oedemera nobilis, Otiorhynchus atroapterus,Malachius bipustulatus , Phyllobius pomaceus, Cheilomenes lunata, Melolontha melolontha, Neojulodis vittipennis, Demetrias atricapillus, Anthia fornasinii, Lophyra cf. differens, Synagris proserpina, Vespula germanica, Astata tropicalis, Anthophora furcata, Andrena nigroaenea, Zebronia phenice, Crambus pascuella, Nemophora degeerella, Sphinx ligustri, Laelia robusta, Acada biseriata, Metisella willemi, Anthocharis cardamines, Papilio demodocus, Panorpa germanica, Chloromyia formosa, Senaspis haemorrhoa, Helophilus pendulus, Episyrphus balteatus, Metadon inermis, Diasemopsis meigenii, Dolichotachina caudata, Megistocera filipes, Hagenomyia tristis, Pephricus, Grypocoris stysi, Ranatra and Anoplocnemis curvipes.

- Metapterygota                                    

See also Enallagma cyathigerum, Pseudagrion hageni, Lestinogomphus angustus and Rhyothemis semihyalina.
- Pterygota                                               
- Dicondylia                                                
- Insecta                                                        
- Hexapoda                                                     
- Arthropoda                                                     

See also Phrynarachne rugosa, Hyllus argyrotoxus, Enoplognatha ovata, Argiope bruennichi, Pardosa amentata, Alopecosa barbipes,  Dicranopalpus ramosus and Ligia oceanica.

- Ecdysozoa                                                         

- Protostomia                                                         

See also Burtoa nilotica.

- Nephrozoa                                                              

- Bilateralia                                                                 

See also Synchiropus splendidus, Rana temporaria, Breviceps poweri, Chiromantis xerampelina, Hipposideros vittatus, Syncerus caffer, Tockus alboterminatus, Larus argentatus, Sterna hirundo, Burhinus vermiculatus, Troglodytes troglodytes, Megaceryle maxima, Ardea goliath, Chalcophaps indica, Stigmatopelia senegalensis, Lygodactylus capensis, Thelotornis capensis, Zootoca vivipara, Trachylepis varia and Trachylepis wahlbergi.

- Eumetazoa                                                                   

- Animalia                                                                         

- Eukaryota                                                                           


And that, unless I'm very much mistaken, is all, folks!

As per usual, the place to go when trying to identify tropical Orthoptera is The Orthoptera Species File. It's not as user friendly as it might be, but it's free and has extraordinary coverage of images of type specimens, lists of relevent texts - and links to those available online - and also distribution maps and even the option to search by location. So it's basically one big win.