Toxicity of Selected Insecticides to the Restless Bush Cricket, a Minor Pest of Citrus in Florida12

Abstract

While orthopterans are considered minor pests in most textbooks and references on citrus entomnology, they can Occasionally produce economically important levels of defoliation and peel injury in citrus crops. Griffiths and Thompson (1952) reported that in Florida severe damage has seldom extended over a wide area, but in local situations control measures have been necessary to prevent the partial or complete defoliation of citrus groves. Giriffiths and Thompson (1947) related one instance where grasshoppers accounted for 75% tree defoliation in a 10-year-old grove. In addition to causing defoliation, grasshoppers occasionally feed on fruit peel, producing injury similar to that caused by katydids and, according to Griffiths (1952), by the “restless bush Cricket,” Hapithus agitator Uhler. Hume (1957) cited katydid injury reportedly involving as much as 57% of a crop. Griffiths (1952) blamed the restless bush cricket for injury to 30–40% of a crop. The latter revelation is the sole published account, to my knowledge, that associates the restless bush cricket with economic injury to citrus. The creature may have been overlooked in the past because it and the katydid share parallel life cycles, similar foliar feeding habits, and a fondness for peel of pea-sized fruit.