INSECTA: ORTHOPTERA—Introduction to Grasshoppers

Photos & text by Dr. Robert Sprackland.

The order Orthoptera (Greek for "straight wings") consists of a huge variety of insects with particularly long and strong hind limbs that make most species Olympic jumpers. They are variously known as grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, and katydids. Many have periodic blooms at which time literally billions of insects swarm and consume all manner of crops and edible plants, making orthopterans a major concern to agricultural businesses around the world. They literally cost humans billions of dollars and probably thousands of lives (through starvation) each year.

Grasshoppers do not have a larval stage; young look like small versions of the parents, but do not grow wings until they mature. Grasshopper ears are on their large hind legs.

This green grasshopper is from the arid center of New South Wales, Australia. 

At right are a group of four red-eyed grasshopper nymphs (Valanga sp.) found on tiny Fitzroy Island, off Cairns, Queensland, Australia.

At left is a colorful forest katydid climbing our ice cooler ("eskie") at Weam, Papua New Guinea.