“Arranging Nature”, the insect art installation by Jennifer Angus has been drawing a lot of interest around the museum. Guests have been asking about what species of insects are used in this art exhibit. We recently covered cicadas and now we move on to grasshoppers!
Grasshoppers: Grasshoppers are insects from the suborder Caelifera which is Latin for “holding up the heavens”. These insects have powerful hind legs designed for leaping, short antenna, and generally have wings as adults. They have powerful jaws made to tear grasses, leaves
and cereal crops. Females are often larger in size than males of a species.
Locusts are several species of grasshoppers from the family Acrididae that can be found in huge swarms that will sometimes cause massive damage to food crops.
Sanaea intermedia: This grasshopper from Thailand has a yellow and brown fore-wing and a deep purple-blue hind wing that is accented with tiny white markings.
Phymates saxosus: Hailing from Madagascar, this grasshopper eats toxic plants and therefore is inedible to humans. This species has deep green fore-wing and a deep pink hind-wing.
Tropidacris dux: From Peru, these enormous grasshoppers are locally called the ‘Giant Brown Cricket’ and are known to be pests of bananna, mango and citrus. This species has brown fore-wings and showy orange hind-wings.
Lophacris cristata: Also from Peru and found into Brazil and Surinam, this grasshopper has brilliant pink hind wings.
Titanacris Albipes: This incredibly large and showy species of grasshopper has purple hind-wings and comes from French Guiana
Worldwide there are some 11,000 species of grasshoppers that have been identified with 660 of those species being native to North America. You can learn more about grasshoppers found in Florida at this link.
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