The Latin name is the internationally recognized name for each species. With this name, any literature ever published on a particular species can be accessed. It is an indicator of phylogeny (closely related species may have similar habits or host plants), and the ‘moniker’ of insect collections (If you need to compare or locate specimens).
The common names included here are taken from Helfer (1953), Capanira and Sechrist (1982), Vickery & McE Kevan (1983), and Pfadt (1994-99). The Pfadt name is listed first, except in (very rare) cases where, with the additional species listed in this website, it is inappropriate. Names followed by an asterisk (*) are coined here and are based upon the (occasionally liberal) Latin translation of that name, or on a modified version of an otherwise inappropriate common name given in one of the above sources– with an attempt to conform with Pfadt’s style. I have restored hyphens to long standing common names to conform with English usage, and with the standardized common names of birds and butterflies. On a related issue, Melanoplus packardii is still listed as Packard grasshopper and not Packard’s grasshopper of tradition. If we are ‘doomed’ to have a dual system of naming, then I would suggest that (except for a few ‘entrenched’ common names) all the Melanoplinae common names terminate with spurthroat and the Oedipodine with bandwing.
