Striped Sedge Grasshopper

Stethophyma lineatum is of three Stethophyma species found in North America, the others being S. celatum and S. gracile. S. lineatum is found in all of interior British Columbia and has also been recorded from Vancouver Island and other points west of the Coast Mountains. In the adjacent Yukon territory, it is found primarily south of the 55th parallel, but has been found from Halfway Lakes (in Elsa, by the Silver Trail), about 63.7°N. S. lineatum was formerly believed to be found in Alaska, based on records from Fairbanks and Beaver. A 1997 article by Vernon Vickery suggested that it might be a stray adventive specimen, but a 2021 paper investigating the Orthoptera of Alaska made a morphological and molecular comparison and identified them instead as Stethophyma grossum, a species hitherto only recorded in Eurasia. The authors went on to suggest that the disjunct Halfway Lakes specimen be reexamined in light of their identification. In the Northwest Territories, the species has only been collected in the area of Great Slave Lake. There is one unusual record of S. lineatum from Resolute Bay, Nunavut, that was "undoubtedly an accidental introduction by aircraft" according to Vickery. It is widespread in the provinces of Canada, being found throughout Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, with fewer records in their northern reaches. …