Later investigation of the site revealed small oval shells with tough skins, possibly coccoons, flattened ovals viewed from side with a circular cross section, with one end neatly removed and empty inside.Ģ0OC86. It moved slowly (diagonal walk), nose to the ground, sometimes pushing the nose beneath the litter and walking several inches with the face thus submerged. One gray squirrel foraging on the ground in an old pine plantation at Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve, DuPage County, IL. The next day, one was eating Nyssa (black gum) seeds (discarding the fruit).Ģ9JE86. Gray squirrels fed on unripe red oak acorns at Reineman Sanctuary, Perry County, Pennsylvania.
Many notes from the fox squirrel dossier also apply to this one.Ģ7JL77. Its relative the fox squirrel is the savanna and small woodlot species, though both can occur together (this one is not found around Culver, Indiana, however). This species is more typical of larger forests and cities. The DuPage observation is a county record for recent times, however, so a valuable find nonetheless. At both the Lemont Quarries of southwest Cook County and in southern DuPage County at Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve I did not find stripe-faced meadow katydids but did find a close relative, the dusky-faced meadow katydid ( Orchelimum campestre), which apparently replaces the stripe-faced species there. I knew of two other dolomite-influenced sites I could check, and did so on the last day of July. Clipped-wing grasshopper ( Metaleptea brevicornis) at Lockport Prairie That site had other interesting and relatively uncommon species, too. Stripe-faced meadow katydid at Lockport Prairie I drove up to the Lockport Prairie preserve in central western Will County, and was pleased to find a significant population there as well. A 1962 paper by Thomas and Alexander associated the species with alkaline soil conditions, so it was reasonable to seek them in other dolomite wetlands.
This year I went back to that site in late July, and found many more stripe-faced males singing than I had observed a year ago. When I went back later in the season to assess the population, I found they were done, the shallow soil above the dolomite bedrock apparently having dried out from under them. This was a significant discovery, because otherwise the only place I had found the species in my 22-county study region was at Illinois Beach State Park. Last year in early August I stumbled across a population of stripe-faced meadow katydids ( Orchelimum concinnum) in a dolomite prairie wetland in the Des Plaines Conservation Area of southern Will County, Illinois.
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