Dark male, Siskiyou County, California: Lava Beds National Monument.
Photograph by Ron Lyons, used by permission.
In email of 10 Dec 2010, Ron Lyons sent these details of the circumstances of his photographing living I. inermis:
Unarmed Shieldback = Idiostatus inermis
I had several pictures of green katydids from the Shasta Basin area (Shasta Valley Wildlife Area, Siskiyou summit road east of I-5 and A12 / Highway 97 area) that I was (and still am) having problems assigning because of the hybidization possibility between I. inermis and I. rehni so I explored the Lava Beds area and a bit north for "pure" inermis to compare against. Based on the collection locations in Rentz (1973), inermis should run through this area up into Oregon.
I photographed this brown male and this green male. By the cerci, they appear to be inermis. However, tergite 10 is much broader and more rounded that that shown in the picture in Rentz (1973) on page 175 figure 33. I am pretty sure these are inermis but I am unclear as to why this area looks so different.
Other than the late instar male and 2 green females mentioned below, the only other definite inermis I found was a straw colored road-killed female in Montague on July 27, 2010. Tergite 10 on it is much more like that in the figure.
male - brown (IMG_6602 and IMG_6597)
Date: August 18, 2010
USA: CA: Siskiyou: Lava Beds National Monument: SE entrance: about 120 yards west of entrance (I found a late instar male just outside the entrance in Modoc County this night)
male - green (IMG 6731 and IMG_6733)
Date: August 24, 2010
USA: CA: Modoc: CR 114 between CR 100 and CR 101: 41 54.600 N, 121
19.952 W, 4133 ft elevation
female - green (IMG_6553, IMG_6557 [not posted] and IMG_6561)
Date: August 18, 2010
USA: CA: Modoc: Modoc National Forest: on road 1-2 miles east of SE entrance to Lava Beds National Monument: 41 41.175 N, 121 26.706 W, 4310 ft elevation
female - green with red mite (IMG_6569, IMG_6572 and IMG_6571)
Date: August 18, 2010
USA: CA: Modoc: Modoc National Forest: on road about 1 mile east of SE entrance to Lava Beds National Monument: 41 41.220 N, 121 26.737, 4278 ft elevation
Note that here I refer to the SE entrance. This is the same place as the east entrance I referred to with the goedeni. The entrance road I was at is in the SE corner of the Monument. There is another road that comes in from the east on the north side so it is probably better to change the goedeni designation to SE entrance.
