Category Archives: Orthoptera-Grasshoppers, Crickets, Katydids

Nature Notes (#521)-The grasshopper flies about, but the kingfisher watches him.~Samoan Proverb

Join Nature Notes-What are you or have you seen and enjoyed in nature? It can be from your own backyard, the local park, out on a hike or anywhere. What plants and animals catch your interest? Do you garden? Have you read a good book on nature?

My grandson is now interested in grasshoppers so…..Now I get to learn about grasshoppers.. I realize that I approach learning and presenting material as a teacher and as a special education teacher at that. I am sorry if my posts look like school lessons, but I learn better when I can see and read the material and when it is presented in an orderly fashion. But there are no tests here and nobody is required to read it… <smile>

Grasshoppers are herbivorous insects of the suborder Caelifera in the order Orthoptera. To distinguish them from bush crickets or katydids, they are sometimes referred to as short-horned grasshoppers. Species that change colour and behaviour at high population densities are called locusts.

GRASSHOPPER CHARACTERISTICS

Grasshoppers are medium to large insects. Adult length is 1 to 7 centimetres, depending on the species. Like their relatives the ‘katydids’ and ‘crickets’, they have chewing mouthparts, two pairs of wings, one narrow and tough, the other wide and flexible, and long hind legs for jumping. They are different from these groups in having short antennae that do not reach very far back on their bodies.

A Grasshopper is an amazing insect that can leap 20 times the length of its own body. If you or I could do that, we would be able to jump almost 40 yards!

A Grasshopper does not actually ‘jump’. What they do is use their legs as a catapult. Grasshoppers can both jump and fly and they can reach a speed of 8 miles per hour when flying. There are about 18,000 different species of grasshoppers.

grasshopper-my photo

GRASSHOPPER HABITAT AND GRASSHOPPER DIET

Grasshoppers live in fields, meadows and just about anywhere they can find generous amounts of food to eat. A grasshopper has a hard shell and a full grown grasshopper is about one and a half inches, being so small you would not think they would eat much – but you would be so wrong – they eat lots and lots – an average grasshopper can eat 16 time its own weight.

The grasshoppers favourite foods are grasses, leaves and cereal crops.

grasshopper eating in one of my bird seed container-Red-legged Grasshopper

GRASSHOPPER BEHAVIOUR

Grasshoppers are most active during the day, but also feed at night. They do not have nests or territories and some species go on long migrations to find new supplies of food. Most species are solitary and only come together to mate, but the migratory species sometimes gather in huge groups of millions or even billions of individuals.

When a grasshopper is picked up, they ‘spit’ a brown liquid which is known as ‘tobacco juice’. Some scientists believe that this liquid may protect grasshoppers from attacks by insects such as ants and other predators – they ‘spit’ the liquid at them then catapult up and fly off quickly.

Grasshoppers also try to escape from their enemies hiding in the grass or among leaves. If you have ever tried to catch grasshoppers in a field, you know how quickly they can disappear by dropping down into the tall grass.

grasshopper on deck

GRASSHOPPER PREDATORS

The grasshoppers greatest enemies include various kinds of flies that lay their eggs in or near grasshopper eggs. After the fly eggs hatch, the newborn flies eat the grasshopper eggs. Some flies will even lay their eggs on the grasshoppers body, even while the grasshopper is flying. The newborn flies then eat the grasshopper. Other enemies of grasshoppers include beetles, birds, mice, snakes and spiders.

GRASSHOPPER REPRODUCTION

 

Grasshoppers reproduce in great numbers. As summer changes to autumn, male and female grasshoppers mate. Males fertilize the females, who will lay the eggs that will become next summer’s grasshopper population.

Finding a suitable location in soft earth, the female drives its elongated abdomen into the ground to deposit a cluster of eggs. A single female may lay as many as 300 eggs in a season. The eggs are covered with a sticky substance that helps protect them as they lie dormant underground through the winter.

grasshopper laying eggs

grasshopper life cycle

grasshopper in yard

Have a wonderful nature-filled week! Please be safe.

 

Insect Chorus-Katydids, Crickets, Trigs and Others.

Insect serenade of summer gaining volume: Katydids, crickets, trigs and others

The mid-summer lull in nature noise is about to come to an end.

Crickets, katydids, grasshoppers and cicadas are about to take up their part of the annual outdoor orchestral. They’ll begin sporadically in the coming days and nights, and then launch their full-on chorus near the end of July into August.

Frogs and toads launched the outdoor musical performance in late winter and early spring. They were soon joined by the birds. We might still hear the croak of frog, the soft “po-ta-to-chip” of the late-nesting American goldfinch or the raucous “jeer” of a foraging flock of blue jays.

But the boisterous courtship season is largely past for the amphibians and the birds. We’re on the verge of the season of the singing insects.

Annual cicadas

 The Canadian cicada, and its cricket-like trill, in northcentral Pennsylvania; the familiar dog-day cicada, with it 15 seconds of electric-saw buzz, in all but the southeastern tip of the state; Linne’s cicada, with its steadily rising, high-speed salt shaker pulses, throughout the state; the lyric cicada, with its buzz-rattle that can drone on for more than a minute, throughout the state; the scissor-grinder cicada, which sounds like the grinding of two scissor blades passing, in most of Pennsylvania; and the swamp cicada, with its 10-15 second bursts of pulsating buzz, across the southern half of the state.

Singing by day

Cicadas buzz during the daylight hours.

Field cricket

Throughout Pennsylvania, the buzz of the cicadas will be joined in the second-half of July by the loud, distinct and rapid chirps of the field cricket. The chirps will continue through the fall, until the insects are killed by frost.

Field crickets chirp day and night, generally silent only at dawn.

Ground crickets

Ground crickets also will join the choir later in July, continuing through late fall and even the first cold days of winter.

Among the ground cricket species we’ll hear in Pennsylvania are Allard’s ground cricket, which is one of the species we commonly find in our homes, with its even trill of a dozen pulses per second; Carolina ground cricket, with its wavering and sputtering, buzzy trill; confused ground cricket, with two-part, half-second-long trills; striped ground cricket, with metallic chirps delivered 2 per second; and the tinkling ground cricket, with an even, tinkling pulse at 5-8 per second.

Ground crickets sing day and night.

Mole cricket

The northern mole cricket, named for its molelike appearance with enlarged, digging forelegs, spend most of their lives underground in extensive tunnel systems. The males sing from their burrows to attract the flying females.

It has the lowest-pitched song of any cricket in the eastern U.S., delivered in a series of brief trills, about 2 per second.

Tree crickets

Tree crickets, whose translucent green bodies and long, lacey wings do not look like our common image of a cricket, as they sing from their perches in the foliage of shrubs and trees.

Among the tree crickets in Pennsylvania are the black-horned tree cricket, with its loud, steady trill; broad-winged tree cricket, whose continuous trill is among the loudest of the crickets and can be heard as far as 200 feet away; Davis’s tree cricket, which often sings its rapid, irregularly interrupted trill from a dogwood tree; four-spotted tree cricket, which often continues its trill even when disturbed; narrow-winged tree cricket, which is another species that will continue its laid-back trill of 2-10 seconds interspersed with periods of silence even when disturbed; pine tree cricket, which chirps its musically pleasing trill from a perch in an evergreen; snowy tree cricket, which delivers a series of pleasant, evenly spaced chirps; two-spotted tree cricket, with its buzzy trill preceded by a few stuttering notes.

Tree crickets sing mostly at night, particularly the first half of the night.

Trigs

Trigs are tiny crickets, also known as sword-tailed crickets. Say’s trig issues its metallic trill from the trees, particularly locust trees. Its call can be heard more than a hundred feet away. The handsome trig sings its loud, staccato trill from bushy hedgerows, particularly thickets of Japanese honeysuckle.

Katydid

Common true katydids, which look like grasshoppers with vertical, leaflike wings, sing from the tree canopy from dusk into night. Males in a given area synchronize into two groups alternating their song in a pulsating, two-part chorus. The true katydids produce the namesake “katy katy-did” song in loud, harsh pulses.

Conehead katydids

Conehead katydids are named for the pointed cones that extend forward from their foreheads. The song of the sword-bearing conehead is a rapid repeating of a noise similar to a bug zapper in 5-10 notes per second. The annoying buzz of the robust conehead can be heard at a distance of a thousand feet.

False katydids

Several species of false katydids, which sing day and night, will be joining the chorus in early August. Among the species in Pennsylvania are the broad-winged bush katydid, five groups of buzzing notes, first in a sequence of 2-3, then a sequence of 4-5, then a series of 5-6; curve-tailed bush katydid, “zit-zit-zit” growing louder on the third; fork-tailed bush katydid, single sharp “tsip” in series of 2-3 punctuated by short periods of silence; oblong-winged katydid, “zee-click” every few seconds; rattler round-winged katydid, 10-20 1-second-long rattles; Texas bush katydid, quick rattle of 3-4 lispy notes; and treetop bush katydid, “tsip,” usually from the tree foliage.

Meadow katydids

Meadow katydids, also known as long-horned grasshoppers, are small grasshoppers with noticeably antennae. They tend to inhabit grassy, weedy areas and produce a very high-pitched song that many people cannot hear, except when a dense colony sings in chorus.

Among the meadow katydids found across Pennsylvania are the common, gladiator, lesser, short-winged, slender, straight-lanced and woodland meadow katydids, and the lesser pine katydid.

Grasshoppers

Most grasshoppers do not make sounds and many of those that do are difficult for the human ear to detect. Among those that produce sounds in Pennsylvania are the familiar Carolina grasshopper most often spotted in open, dry areas with exposed soil, which produces a series of snaps and clicks, and the marsh meadow grasshoppes, which makes a rapid series of more than 30 raspy notes over a run of 5 seconds or so.

Male singers

It’s the male of the species that generally produces sound to attract mates. Many also stop singing or switch to a courtship song when they’re aware of a female’s approach in response to their calling sounds. In some species, males also hurl aggressive sounds at other males in their vicinity.

Stridulation

Crickets, katydids and grasshoppers produce their sound through stridulation, which involves rubbing one body part against another; in crickets and katydid, it’s the wings; in grasshoppers, it’s the hind legs.

Male cicadas have sound-producing organs called tymbals on the sides of their abdomens.

More about insects in Pennsylvania

Nature Notes (#447)~ Katydid Fall Serenade.

Join Nature Notes Sunday at 12:00 am EST to Friday at 11:00 pm EST. More information can be found at the top of the blog on a separate page, but it really is easy. What are you or have you seen and enjoyed in nature? It can be from your own backyard, the local park, out on a hike or anywhere. What plants and animals catch your interest? Do you garden? Have you read a good book on nature? Write a blog post with a photo, a story, a poem, anything goes because I love to see what Mother Nature is up to in your area. Please submit one blog post per week and link back to nature notes in some way.

1. Shiju Sugunan 4. Day One 7. Junieper/ Jesh
2. Pictografio 5. orchid( apan)
3. Pat– Denali National Park, Alaska

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One of the true pleasures of the fall is the serenade provided by katydids and their relatives, crickets. Both day and night in September and October trills, chirps, and clicks can be heard in forests, meadows, and home landscapes as they engage in dating games. The song of our friend the meadow katydid consists of a series of buzzes and ticks created by the male to attract his mate. The object of his attention responds first to the general din created by several males as they vie to create the perfect song. After locating other members of her species, the lady meadow cricket judges the worthiness of her potential mate by the quality of his song. Clever scientists have found that the buzz component of the male’s song may be the line that seals the deal with his mate. To hear the courting song of the male meadow katydid, please click on the following link:

http://songsofinsects.com/katydids/short-winged-meadow-katydid

Short-winged Meadow Katydid (Conocephalus brevipennis)

Numerous and widespread in the East, the Short-winged Meadow Katydid is easily overlooked because of its small size and its faint, high-pitched song. Recognized by its bright green body, yellow-orange rear, and a dark brown band that runs from the top of its head back to its wings. Most, but not all, individuals have short wings (note the long-winged male on the facing page). Found in areas of coarse weeds, grassy fields, and roadsides, in dry or wet areas. When approached, an individual will stretch out along the underside of a blade of grass, making it very difficult to spot. Easily disturbed, Short- winged Meadow Katydids are very good jumpers, making them difficult to catch.

Like other kaydids meadow katydids are omnivores. Foliage, flowers, and occasional meaty tidbits like aphids are on the menu.. As with all insects, female katydids are the ones that lay eggs. To protect her eggs from the winter, female katydids deposit their eggs in protected locations beneath the surface of the soil, in plant tissue, or under the bark of a tree depending on the species. This task is accomplished with the help of an elongated egg-laying tube called an ovipositor which is found on the rear end of the katydid. Males lack an ovipositor so differentiation of female and make katydids is a straightforward task.

Song: Song is composed of one to five ticks followed by a faint buzz lasting several seconds. Extremely high pitched, with most of the sound energy from 10–20 kHz. Sings both day and night. Although the song is loud, it is so high pitched that many people cannot hear it, even up close.

 

Short-winged Meadow Katydids range from northern Maine, south through Florida, west to central Texas, and back north to eastern South Dakota and central Minnesota. They can be amazingly abundant in their preferred habitat of grassy fields and overgrown pastures. This species can be very easily seen at night by searching the seed heads of grasses such as Timothy grass and Foxtail grass.

Nature walks are wonderful. But you don’t have to travel to special location to enjoy Mother Nature. There is so much to see in your own neighborhood or even in your own back or front yard. Get a guide-book of the wildlife in your area and learn the calls of birds and frogs and toads. So many times I hear a bird that lets me know what I am looking for in the trees.

Have a wonderful week from Michelle!