Subject: Orange grasshopper Florida
Location: 27.3724769,-80.3443463
February 23, 2015 1:23 pm
Hello!
We saw a few dozen of these on the base of a tree by a southeastern river hammock near the natural fall-line about 5 miles inland from the Indian River lagoon. It is not listed on insectidentification.org, and 10-15 mins of web searching yielded nothing that closely resembled what I saw. Sorry for the poor quality image, but I did not have my good cameras with me (we were fishing), so a cellphone cam is the best I could do. The appearance of these grasshoppers is unique enough to be identifiable, even with the poor image.
Thanks for any info you may be able to offer.
Cheers,
Signature: RetroJoe
Dear RetroJoe,
These are recently hatched Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers, Romalea microptera, a common flightless species in the south with two color variations.
Thanks, Daniel!
I thought that was the most likely possibility, but I had not seen them in such an early phase before.
Thanks again,
Joe
Nice find! It’s interesting to see what these grasshoppers look like when they first hatch. Thanks for sharing!