what is this?
Location: Plantersville, TX
June 26, 2011 9:18 pm
I found these ”grasshoppers” on a sidewalk in Plantersville, TX over the weekend. The hind end was wide, not very grasshopper-y. I was wondering if it was just a different kind of grasshopper or what.
Signature: Jana Doss
Hi Jana,
These are mating, flightless Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers, Romalea microptera. They have both a light and a dark form and this is the light form. We just posted a photo of the dark form that emerged from a watermelon shipment in New Jersey, many hundreds of miles north of its typical range. Texas is the furthest west the Eastern Lubber Grasshopper is found.