Koppie Foam Grasshopper

Subject: Identify Grasshopper
Location: Mpumalanga Pelgrimsrest area
May 27, 2015 4:16 am
Good day,
There are quite a few of this beautiful black & red with a touch of blue grasshoppers in the Drakensberg area between Pelgrimsrest and Orhrigstad in the Mpumalanga district. I have looked through various books & tried to identify this grasshopper but had no success. It seems as though they do not have developed wings .
Signature: Naomi Le Roux

Dear Naomi,
Your Grasshopper is a Koppie Foam Grasshopper, Dictyophorus spumans, which you can view on iSpot.  According to iNaturalist:  “the koppie foam grasshopper or rooibaadjie, is a species of grasshopper in the family Pyrgomorphidae indigenous to Africa. The name “foaming grasshopper” derives from the insect’s ability to produce a toxic foam from its thoracic glands.”