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The Daily Bucket is a nature refuge.
We amicably discuss animals, weather, climate, soil, plants, waters and note life’s patterns.
We invite you to note what you are seeing around you in your own part of the world, and to share your observations in the comments below.
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September 19, 2018
Pacific Northwest
Saw this grasshopper yesterday late afternoon. I’ve seen others like it at this site, a dirt road by a field. They’ve either been parked on the ground or darting around looking like a butterfly — all colorful and flitty. This time it flitted its wings as if it was flying, but didn’t lift off. Not sure what that was about.
But it gave me an opportunity to look at it more closely, and even identify it. It’s a Carolina grasshopper or locust, Dissosteira carolina. In spite of the name, this species is native to the whole US. These grasshoppers are quite large. They eat grasses mostly, and are not considered bad crop pests. Typical habitat is weedy disturbed sites.
While resting on the ground with wings folded the grasshopper is nearly invisible, exactly the color of the ground, a mix of dirt and dried grass. Wings open, it exposes not just its dark brown hind wings margined yellow with a pretty pattern in the corners, but brilliant metallic blue highlights on its thorax and abdomen. Completely obscured by the forewings at rest.
The forewings rotate 90° to the side and the hind wings open like a fan. Most of the time that this grasshopper was exposing its wings on this occasion they were vibrating so fast they are a blur on film.
Ordinarily,
In the afternoon the adults bask on bare ground beginning about 3 p.m. and ending about 5 p.m. Then they walk or fly to vegetated areas where they seek shelter usually under canopies of grasses. Sampling of their density on a bare, gravel road in Laramie County, Wyoming on 4 October 1992 showed that adults (0.06 per square yard) were 20 times more prevalent at 4 p.m. DST than at 5:17 p.m., and none were found at 5:29 p.m.
www.uwyo.edu/...
It was about 5pm when I saw it. This fella is in trouble if it can’t fly, or walk to shelter for the night. It’ll be food for the next bird coming by. It wasn’t even that cold out, upper 50s. Some kind of damage? Maybe it’s just getting late in the season for it? I checked out iNaturalist and its history graph indicates that by the end of September very few people are seeing them, nationwide. In general I know insects shut down by winter. I always thought it was a temperature thing, but perhaps it’s food? Or do they run down after a certain number of days as an adult?
Grasshopper was still sitting there when I walked on. I’ll check again tomorrow.
What’s up in nature in your area today?
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