STUDIES IN NEARCTIC DESERT SAND DUNE OR'IHOPTERA A new (ienus and Species of Stenopehnatine Crickets fioni the Kelso Dunes with notes on its multi-annual life history and k(>\-. Part X Eitu'st R. Tinkliiiin' During the past decade the author has made a score of trips to the great Kelso Dunes studying its fauna and flora; the summers of 1957-1960 assisted by National Science Foundation grants. As these dunes lie 155 miles north of Indio. California, by road, a total of 6200 miles has been travelled in these trips during the period 1954-1964. On the second trip in mid Jime. 1955. tracking a strange trail by day led to the discovery of a crippled .Jerusalem sand cricket. Due to its great rarity, only a few specimens have been taken during the years. Often years go by without the finding of a specimen, especially true of the drouth years which most have been since 1960. The second specimen was a young nymph, captured the night of October 25. 1957. when a light drizzle of rain was falling on the dunes. The discovery of specimens was somewhat expedited, when, in the spring of 1959, I started teaching Extension Courses for San Diego State College. One of the requirements for my course NATURE STUDY OF THE DESER T was an overnight field trip to the Kelso Dunes, usually held in late April and late October of every year. With 25 to 50 teachers, accompanied often by many children and quite a few Coleman lanterns, such a group of searchers covers an area far greater than any scientist can possibly do. Even with such groups, only a few specimens have been found through the years. The last finding was five young nymphs, the night of April 20, 1963. when the sands were icy cold (temperature of the sand next morning at 7:00 was 34° Fahrenheit). At the time of writing in August. 1965, almost two and one half years later, three are still alive and are about one-half to two-thirds grown, so that we may expect the multi-annual life cycle to run three or possibly four or more years in length. In a paper soon to be published by the California Academy of Sciences, the author has laid the groundwork for future studies in the genus Stertopelmatus Burmeister. From this research it is obvi-ous that the worker must rely on the chaetotaxy of the legs as the most significant taxonomic feature to distinguish the various species. In this article, I recognized and redescribed S. intermedius Davis and Smith along chaetotaxical lines. Such nebulous characters as punctation. length of antennal segments, nature of frontal sutures and the sternal plates have been discarded, along with the form of the ovipositor, which appears identical in all species. I have laid the stress on the spination of the legs. 63
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