Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Wordless Wednesday: Mutant Grasshopper, Alien Invader, or Locust?




All material © 2012-2014 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party


18 comments:

  1. Wow what great 'yellow' grasshopper!
    Hope it does not eat up your plants.
    Like your "Big Roo Yellow"!
    Have a good day
    Mariana

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    1. I blamed the raccoon for eating the stalks off the grass in the other pot near the front door but this off little yellow grasshopper may be the real culprit!

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  2. I have seen some odd colored ones here as well--pinkish-white, for example. Perhaps those are the ones that have just moulted? Hopefully they are like variegated plants--less vigorous.

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    1. Pink! I'd never seen a yellow grasshopper before. I checked the on-line sources and found that there is a yellow variety but its habitat is the southeast so this one would have to have wandered way off course. Apparently, when locusts swarm, they can also undergo color changes but I certainly hope that's not in the offing here. I'll have to check the molting idea.

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  3. How cool, I've never seen a yellow one before! Hope it's not going to be very naughty though...

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    1. What's odd - in addition to his color - is that he (or she) has remained on that plant in a pot by the front door for several days now. I even wondered if he had died in place and gave him a little poke to see if he was still alive - he moved, but not far.

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  4. I don't know, but the giant ones in my garden are not in my good books at the moment! So naturally, I'm looking at this one with contempt. But, innocent until proven guilty, so I shouldn't be so quick to judge, haha.
    This one is a lovely colour.

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    1. This one's small, Amy, and apparently happy to hang out at my front door eating the ornamental millet. I usually chase them away but, for some reason, I've become fond of this one - maybe because it's yellow (my favorite color). It probably does account for the poor state of both millet plants in the front pots, though.

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  5. Like you, I was puzzled that the online sources all said yellow grasshoppers lived in the southeast. But then I read about the gray bird grasshopper which lives here. It has color variations including yellow. But yours is quite small. So I'm thinking it is young yet with more moults to get through, maybe? The lady who took these pictures used to lead the Bug Safaris at Fullerton Arboretum.https://www.flickr.com/photos/17316149@N00/sets/72157624504306229/player
    A very intriguing photo, Kris!

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    1. It does look remarkably like some of the photos in the link you provided, Jane. It is small and doesn't appear to want to move around much. I guess that's good - only the ornamental millet in the front pots is being destroyed.

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  6. Alien invader, it's watching you and reporting back to the mother ship.

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  7. Weird creatures you have in your part of the world. I' ve never seen a yellow one either.

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    1. The consensus seems to be that it's a juvenile form of our common brown grasshopper but all I've ever seen are green and brown grasshoppers. I should probably send it packing.

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  8. I'm pretty sure that's a juvenile Schistocerca nitens, seen here , what becomes the common large brown grasshopper we see in SoCal.

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  9. Aren't, the hoppers everywhere this year? And in all colors. They thrive in these dry conditions. I was working late in the office off the garden last night with the door open and one jumped in -- hope I didn't wake any neighbors with my scream. What's really "bugging" me is the scale, which is off the hook this year.

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    1. The big adults always manage to spook me too, Denise - they're so stealthy and, unlike my little yellow one, they're camouflaged. What I want to know is why can't the raccoons eat grasshoppers rather digging up my borders for tiny grubs? One adult grasshopper has to be a full meal by comparison.

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