[Taxacom] Ant-mimicking orthopteroid insect identified as "Macroxiphus" nymph

[Dilrukshan Wijesinghe]

Several photographs exist on the web (including iNaturalist) of a black ant-mimicking orthopteroid insect (twitter.com/elaphrornis/status/1091715878482337792). Most of these are identified as "Macroxiphus" or "Macroxiphus nymph". The same identification is made in a book (Quick, 2017) for what appears to be the same insect.

 Macroxiphus is a genus of long-horned grasshopper (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae), in the tribe Agraeciini, subfamily Conocephalinae (Orthoptera Species File: orthoptera.speciesfile.org/Common/basic/Taxa.aspx?TaxonNameID=1132785). Figures or photographs of Macroxiphus show the adults to be fairly "normal" looking tettigoniids, with no resemblance at all to ants.

I would be interested to know if anyone familiar with the literature on tropical Asian Tettigoniidae could point me to a published account that makes the claim that the black ant-mimicking insect (such as featured in photographs identified as "Macroxiphus" or "Macroxiphus nymph") is really the nymph of a long-horned grasshopper of the genus Macroxiphus (or even a related genus of Agraeciini).

Thanks in advance for any pointers!

Quick, D. L. J. 2017. Mimicry, Crypsis, Masquerade and other Adaptive Resemblances. John Wiley & Sons Ltd. ISBN: 9781118931530.

Priyantha

D. P. Wijesinghe
dpwijesinghe at yahoo.com