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Differential Grasshopper?
Just inches from the milkweed bugs… sunning itself on a brick wall…. I have tentatively ID’d as a differential grasshopper? I couldn’t find a close match on your website so I searched Bugguide. I’m assuming I am wrong, as I live in a Chicago suburb and there are no crops nearby… yet we already have drought, so maybe another plague has arrived?
Jill A

Hi Jill,
Nice research job. BugGuide is great. We agree with your assessment that this is a Differential Grasshopper, Melanoplus differentialis. They are found throughout the U.S. in grasslands and open woods. They feed on grasses which I’m sure you have in the suburbs, and they will also damage crops and even eat fruit. They do not migrate, unlike locusts, but they can still be very destructive.

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