Bladder grasshoppers of southern Africa
- Body shape in adult males strongly inflated, bladder-like and semi-transparent; typically acridid-like in all other individuals and in the males of Parabullacris, Pneumoracris, and Paraphysemacris.
- Head hypognathous, lacking a frontal ridge, with forbivorous mandibles.
- Ocelli in males larger than in Acridoidea, in females mostly vestigial.
- Antennae shorter than pronotum, 18-23 sharply separated segments, filiform to slightly club-like.
- Median carina of pronotum highly cristate to low-tectiform, crossed by 3-4 transverse sulci, mesosternal interspace deeply concave in most species.
- Abdominal segments 1-3 partially fused in inflated males; second segment with sclerotized ridge forming part of stridulatory mechanism.
- Hind legs lack saltatorial ability, approximate to cursorial form, with strongly sclerotised longitudinal carina (the other half of the stridulatory apparatus) on internal side of femur in males.
- Wings macropterous in inflated males, vestigial in non-inflated males, brachypterous or micropterous in females.
- Phallic complex very simple; with rudimentary sclerotizations of sac-like ectophallus, simple tube-like endophallus, and plate-like epiphallus without lophi and ancorae.