Beautiful arthropod?!
Location: Naples FL
April 26, 2012 9:27 pm
Hi, and thank you for your help! I took a photo of what I believe is a cricket, but I have never seen one so colorful before. The photo was taken April 24, 2012, in Naples FL. I love the vibrant color, but it certainly seems like it would only attract predators as well. Can you name this bug?
Signature: Heather Argyle

Eastern Lubber Grasshopper

Hi Heather,
The Eastern Lubber Grasshopper, Romalea microptera, really is a colorful creature and there are two distinct color variations, the other being black with orange markings.  According to BugGuide:  “Adults are flightless. Coloration is aposematic (warning), apparently this species is distasteful to vertebrate predators. When disturbed, it will spread its wings, hiss, and secrete a smelly fluid from its spiracles (1).  In some regions individuals are prevalently black, in others orange or yellow.”

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What the hell is this??
Location: Safford, Arizona
March 24, 2012 4:25 pm
Please help… It looks beetle-ish like and grasshopper-ish like.
There are swarms of them… And caught this one on a concrete block. Took this photo back in October.
Again, these things are nasty!
Signature: Brittney Ivie

Horse Lubber

Hi Brittney,
The Horse Lubber, Taeniopoda eques, is a species of Grasshopper found in the arid southwest.  According to BugGuide:  “The bright lines on the head make it look from the side like a horse’s head with a bridle, and the overall effect is reminiscent of the armor, harness and other equipment on a medieval knight’s horse- which probably explains both the common and scientific names.” 

A Reader Comments
language
March 27, 2012 5:11 pm
Hi, As an educator,I have been a long time user of this website. I enjoy looking at the information myself as well as sharing this website with my students. Today I opened up the website and the first thing my students saw was a post with the following narrative, ”What the hell is this?” Seeing such language puts my use of this website in a school setting at risk. I would appreciate it if in the future you could edit inappropriate language in posts before putting them on your website.
Thank you.
Signature: Lynn Wisniewski

Automated Response:
Thank you for submitting your identification request.
Please understand that we have a very small staff that does this as a labor of love. We cannot answer all submissions (not by a long shot). But we’ll do the best we can!

I certainly do appreciate your quick response and hope that your are able to address the use of inappropriate language in posts. I don’t know if your resources allow you the opportunity to edit before putting narratives on the website.  Perhaps you could put a disclaimer at the top of the submission part of the website asking for appropriate language as children and other viewers may be offended by foul language.
Your website is awesome and my daughter who is thinking about getting her graduate degree in entymology particularly enjoys it.  Keep up the great work!
Thanks!

Thanks for your concern Lynn,
We realize that there are many young visitors to our site, and for that reason we are very careful about the use of profanity.  We do not generally edit the letters we receive and we also refrain from correcting grammar and spelling in the letters we post.  While the language you cited is definitely crass, we take even more offense to Brittney referring to the Horse Lubber as “nasty”.  Rest assured that we do monitor the content of the website, but there is always going to be someone that finds something we post offensive.  There is far more graphic, crass and offensive language on television.  We will try to be more mindful in the future.

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Stick Insect bug
Location: Bushland in Western Victoria
January 29, 2012 12:53 am
Hello,
I’ve discovered a bug that seems to belong to the Phasmatodea family, but because it has legs like a grasshopper (it jumps pretty fast) i’m not sure what family it belongs to let alone its genus or species. Could you identify this bug and inform me of what it feeds on?
Thanks
Signature: Jordan

Green Grass Pyrgomorph

Dear Jordan,
We believe we have correctly identified your Grasshopper as a Green Grass Pyrgomorph in the genus Atractomorpha based on photographs posted to the Brisbane Insect Website which indicates:  “This grasshopper is also known as Vegetable Grasshopper. They are common in Brisbane and easily found on grasses and other garden plants.”  The site also states:  “The Vegetable Grasshoppers feed on different type of leaves, mainly on dicotyledonous plants.”

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Peruvian Grasshopper Photos
Date:     January 19, 2012 10:12:38 AM PST
Location:  Peru
Okay, here are pics of a couple of grasshoppers that caught my attention in Peru last November.
… 2. “Yellow Grasshoppers”: photo of a male (enlarged portion of which you saw this morning), and a photo of a mating pair. Near Tarapoto, Dept. San Martín, northern Peru, 5 November 2011. On roadside vegetation, on top of a large leaf of a plant that may be in the Euphorbiaceae (most of which are toxic), but not sure if this was the foodplant or just a perching spot. (Photographed by our Peruvian bird guide, Silverio Duri, using my sister’s camera.)
You’re welcome to publish these if you see fit.
Julian

Gaudy or Lubber Grasshopper???

Hi Julian,
We have not been able to substantiate our identification with any matching photographs on the internet, but we believe these lovely creatures with aposomatic or warning coloration nodules on their heads and thoracic sections are Pyrgomorphs or Gaudy Grasshoppers.  Was there any milkweed nearby.  The look very much like the Toxic Milkweed Grasshoppers in the family.  We did locate this wonderful website called Flickriver:  Most interesting photos tagged with pyrgomorphidae, but alas, your beauties are not represented.

Could these be mating Spendid Grasshoppers???

Update:  Cesar from Brazil sent us a link to Chromacris psittacus which is a very close match.  If Cesar is correct in either the species or genus, then we are wrong in the family since Encyclopedia of Life classifies them in Romaleidae.  We believe there may be an error someplace since BugGuide indicates the subfamily Romaleinae for Lubber Grasshoppers.  Perhaps these are actually Lubber Grasshoppers, though often Lubbers have atrophied wings.  There is an example with yellow antennae tips on Yakovlev alexey’s photos of FlickRiver.  You need to scroll down a bit.  Artour A’s Flickriver site gives a common name of Spendid Grasshopper or Brasilinho for the genus Chromacris.

Karl provides an identification
Hi Daniel, Julian and Cesar:
I believe they are definitely a species of Chromacris and the best information I have found for this genus is by Radclyffe and Carbonell (1982). There are only two species in Peru that have yellow-tipped antennae. Based on the yellow banding on the hind legs, this one appears to be C. icterus. The other species with yellow-tipped antennae is C. peruviana, coincidentally posted on your site by Peter Bruce-Jones on February 28, 2011. The main difference is that C. icterus has one yellow band on the hind tibia, while C. peruviana has two (I can’t see the tibia on either of the two mating individuals so I am assuming they are all the same). Regards. Karl

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