Anabrus simplex De Novo Transcriptome Assembly

The Mormon Cricket (Anabrus simplex Haldeman, 1852) is a species of flightless shield-backed katydid (Tettigoniidae) that occurs all over the Western Great plains of the United States. During favorable ecological conditions which promote high population densities, the Mormon Cricket will travel together in dense bands numbering in the millions, and can become a major pest in this aggregative state, consuming and damaging important agricultural crops and grazing fields. This project aims to sequence and assemble de novo transcriptomes of the Mormon Cricket based on individuals collected from an outbreak population in Idaho. Specifically three female adult individuals were selected to sequence tissue-specific transcriptomes from head, thorax, and abdomen.