A comprehensive computer database to the world's orthopteroid insect species (cockroaches, grasshoppers, katydids, mantids, cave crickets, etc.) is being developed at the Academy of Natural Sciences. Both living and fossil species will be included. Presently the file includes over 21,000 species and 133,000 literature records. The larger goal, of which this project is the first part, is to produce a global, taxonomically oriented, multimedia (text, graphics, sound) computer database which will aid taxonomists and other biologists who wish to know which taxa occur in their regions, how to identify them, and what their ecological role is. It will be especially valuable to systematists and managers of insect collections who must struggle with a large and scattered literature. The present project will focus on the North American grasshoppers. This group has been the subject of two books published by the principal investigator, Dr. Daniel Otte - The North American Grasshoppers. Volumes I and II were funded by NSF. The data assembled in this work will be the foundation for the publishing of volumes 3 and 4 of the series. Volume 3 will include the economically important subfamily of Melanoplinae grasshoppers.
