Florgusts

Florgusts are a group of large-winged, usually colorful flying crickets widespread across Serina. They exhibit the most advanced adaptations to flight of all crickets by the Cryocene, with a single pair of broad wings that are frequently marked with bright and beautiful patterns, formed by millions of small iridescent scales, which may serve to help individuals to spot others of their species to find mates, to camouflage, or to warn potential predators that some species may be poisonous if ingested. The wings used by the florgust to fly are actually the cricket's second pair, the first reduced to vestigial rubbery wing coverts just a few millimeters long. Florgusts are agile flyers, able to maneuver well and stick their landings better than most other flying crickets. They occur across a wide variety of habitats from rainforests to open grasslands, sometimes alone and sometimes in large groups.

Most florgusts have short lifespans, surviving over the winter as eggs which are buried in soil, develop in the spring, and mate in the fall, though some species live several years, mate multiple times, and migrate to avoid cold weather in regions away from the equator. Like all crickets, florgusts hatch as nymphs - miniature but wingless versions of the adults, which typically sport cryptic colorations of green, gray, or brown, and only attain their vibrant adult pelage with their final molt, when their wings also unfold and let them take to the air. Nymphs, obviously incapable of flight, initially feed on the leaves, shoots, and buds of a variety of vegetation, grazing with well-developed chewing mandibles. As they molt and become progressively larger, however, their preferences change, and as adults their mouth parts have become reduced and a long brush-like tongue has developed in their place, used to collect nectar and pollen from flower blossoms. Adult florgusts are mainly nectivorous, fluttering between blossoms and performing a vital service of pollination, though some species continue to consume vegetation even in their final adult stage.

Young florgusts are well-suited jumpers with long hind legs that let them easily careen between distant branches in trees or alternately to cover large distances on the ground. As they grow however, the hind legs don't continue to grow at the same rate as the other limbs, so that by the time adulthood is reached they are only marginally longer and not particularly suited to jumping, for the volant adults no longer need this ability to get around.

Florgusts are sexually dimorphic. In some species, the only major difference between the sexes may be size; females are always larger, sometimes dramatically. Most florgusts, however, exhibit a degree of niche distribution and behavioral differences; males, being smaller and lighter, have larger wings, shorter legs, and are more specialized to feed on nectar, while females are larger, heavier, and retain more adaptations to feed on foliage, with bigger mouthparts, longer legs, and proportionally smaller wings. The heavier females are less mobile, spending more time feeding on plants and trees than flying, and thus use less energy moving about and are able to put more of what they have towards producing eggs. The daintier, agile males are therefore adapted to search out the females, with longer antennae and a better sense of smell to find their pheromones. Typically both male and female are brightly colored as adults, but often with patterns distinct enough that, combined with the disparity of size and form, males and females of one species can sometimes be mistaken for two different sorts of insect.

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Mature female, male, and juvenile nymph of the Anciskan orange-band florgust, a species that feeds on short prairie grasses and dandelion shrubs on the savannahs of northern Anciska, a much drier habitat in the Cryocene than it was many millions of years ago. The female of this species is not only larger with stronger jaws but also differently marked, with bold blue patches on her wings that her mate lacks. She also sports a long ovipositor on her tail, through which her eggs are laid into the soil. This species has a lifespan of only about five months, surviving the region's cold winters as dormant eggs in the ground.