Arizona meadow katydid

Orchelimum unispina

All dots on the distribution map represent county records. The black dots are records from tblMain. Gold dots represent records from iNaturalist.

Brandon Woo, top observer and top identifier of O. unispina on iNaturalist and PhD student in the Song Lab at Texas A&M University, said this about O. unispina's distribution (email sent on 8 May 2025):

The distribution of O. unispina is pretty interesting and I have tried to collect specimens wherever I encounter the species. Initially it was thought to occur only in Mexico and southeastern [Arizona] (as the SINA map [currently*] shows), but in 2019 I found it to be common in the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Subsequently, I found other iNat and BugGuide records that show it has been in Texas since at least 2010. Since I moved to Texas in 2021, and have collected in quite a few locations, I have found that the species is actually quite common and abundant (and usually easy to collect too) from the Rio Grande Valley all the way to the Corpus Christi area. I have also collected it occasionally from other locations in Texas, as far north as College Station, but never more than 3-4 individuals at a time. These seem to be from populations at the northern fringes of its range. In looking at the current records, it seems as though the species follows the Sierra Madre Occidental into Arizona and has also followed the Sierra Madre Oriental into Texas. Perhaps it has always been here?

*Email was sent when the original map page was still on SINA; at present the updated map page is on SINA. [tmy 10 May 2025]