Acrididae in the Mississippi Entomological Museum

            The Acrididae collection in the Mississippi Entomological Museum (MEM) dates back to 1892 and contains approximately 7,000 specimens.  However, Acrididae had not been a taxa of large interest, and the majority of specimens were collected in passing or are from student collections.  Most of the species that are well represented in the collection are common and are largely associated with agricultural fields as a result of the agricultural emphasis of this university. The collection includes material collected by W. H. Cross, Morgan Hebard, and others from a wide range of geographical localities.
            For many years the MEM collection was in disarray with new material placed with the unidentified specimens. Since 2000, the collection has been curated, and most of the North American specimens have been identified.  Recent collections have mostly focused on the acridid fauna of the Black Belt Prairie of Mississippi and Alabama, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Eastern Georgia with a list for Mississippi as well as the entire southeastern United States also in the works.  Additionally, collections have been made on the annual W.H. Cross Expedition from the Ohoopee Dunes in Georgia, Bibb County Glades in Central Alabama, Alabama Limestone glades in Northern Alabama, and Petit Jean State Park in Arkansas.

Current Research

            Currently JoVonn Hill and Matt Dakin are working on the Acrididae of the Southeastern United States, encompassing Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nourth Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.  The primary goals of this project are to more accurately describe the acridid fauna of the region and to give more detailed species distributions. For information on Florida species see http://entnemdept.ifas.ufl.edu/ghopper/ghopper.html.
            JoVonn G. Hill is a Research Associate with the Mississippi Entomological Museum.  He started studying the grasshopper fauna of Mississippi’s Black Belt prairie remnants in 2000.  Since then he has expanded his scope to cover the entire fauna of the state Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Recently, JoVonn joined Matt in his survey of the Orthopteroid insects of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He is also currently working on a revision of the Melanoplus scapularis and M. strumosus species groups.
           Matt E. Dakin Jr. received his Ph.D. from Auburn University in 1968 where his dissertation focused on the Orthoptera of Alabama.  Afterwards he taught at the University of Southern Louisiana, where he spent 30 years studying the Orthoptera of Louisiana. Currently, he is retired and resides in Opelika, Alabama.