Grasshoppers: external structure, lifestyle and behavioral features
3.5 (70%) 20 votesThe grasshopper is an insect that belongs to the suborder Caelifera. In addition to crickets and locusts, it also includes horned grasshoppers. Among the most interesting facts about grasshoppers, several important findings about these insects come to the fore. This article talks about their diet, behavior, reproduction and distribution.
There are about 8,000 species of grasshoppers in the world. Among them, there are three main species such as long-horned, short-horned, and pygmy. Locust is another type of grasshopper.
Some species are distinguished by their color, behavior and large numbers, they are known as locusts. These insects have antennae that are relatively short compared to their body. With the help of powerful jaws, grasshoppers bite off their food. Powerful and long hind thighs are great for jumping. They are greyish-brown in color, often with a reddish-brown tint.
Data on grasshoppers show that these insects are found almost everywhere in the world, except in extremely cold regions.
These insects do not have ears, but they can certainly hear. An organ called the eardrum contributes to their hearing. One of the unique facts about grasshoppers is that the eardrum is located in the abdomen and often looks like a huge round disc.
Grasshoppers are easily confused with crickets, which belong to the same family, but they share many distinctive features. For example, there is a clear difference in the number of antennal segments, the structure of the ovipositor and the way sounds are produced, as well as in the position of the cymbals. Unlike crickets, grasshoppers have 20 to 24 antennae segments.
The nervous system of a grasshopper consists of nerve cells freely located in the body. They are called ganglia. These cells tend to exist in almost all species. All ganglia are connected to the center - the brain.
Grasshoppers have two huge eyes on the top of their heads. These are compound eyes. They consist of thousands of little eyes that receive information and send it to the brain.
Although they have wings, they are not usually used for actual flight. Males are relatively shorter than females with large ovipositors. Two pairs of flaps are attached to the female's abdomen and are actually used for burrowing while laying eggs.
These animals can also change their color depending on the environment. This is especially necessary to get rid of potential predators such as frogs. Most of these species hide well in green fields and forests.
Grasshoppers are also known to jump up to 20 times their length.
The weight of these species is 2-3 grams, but they can push off the ground with their feet with a force of about 30 grams. This is due to the muscles in the legs. All movements (contraction and relaxation) must be done quickly, otherwise he will not be able to fly high.
Do you know they sing late at night? If you do not sleep all night, and suddenly you hear a chirping in complete darkness, this is the grasshoppers singing. They do not sing for us, and their sole purpose is to attract females for mating.
Grasshoppers are herbivorous species, and they mainly feed on a variety of plants during the day - grass and crops. They have a large amount of protein. Eating everything: leaves, stems, roots. These insects usually limit their diet to a few plants. Some species of these insects can eat tapeworms, so you need to handle them with caution.
The green grasshopper is a beautiful large insect of bright green or light green color with long translucent wings. The inhabitants of Russia are well acquainted with the green grasshopper, as it lives in almost all landscape zones of the country. Only the climatic conditions of the northern regions are unfavorable for its existence.
The characteristic natural coloration serves as an excellent camouflage for the green grasshopper, which lives mainly in grasses and bushes. From mid-summer to late autumn, it can be found in gardens, on the edges of forests, along the edges of fields and meadows. In the desert area, the green grasshopper prefers the edges of tugai forests and river valleys. In Central Asia, he climbs high into the mountains to hide in gorges with succulent herbaceous plants. Also, this insect can be found in many other countries: in European countries (except for the countries of Northern Europe), Mongolia, Northern India, the countries of Western Asia, Afghanistan, Western China.
The body of an adult insect, like the body of a larva, has a juicy green color. Only on the wings and chest can sometimes be dark spots. Body length - 28–36 mm. Antennae very long, bristle-shaped, with a reddish tinge. The length of the whiskers of the green grasshopper exceeds the length of the body of the insect. The grasshopper has 2 pairs of wings - front and back. The hindwings are wide, transparent, with thin veins forming an abstract geometric pattern; the front ones are denser and narrower. At rest, the hind wings are hidden under the front wings. The length of the wings exceeds the length of the abdomen of the insect by almost 2 times. The head is elongated. The eyes are round, bulging. The upper part of the pronotum has a convex or flat shape. Type of mouth apparatus - gnawing.
Females differ from males by the presence of a long saber-shaped or xiphoid ovipositor compressed from the sides. The hind limbs of males are much longer than the front ones. The organs of hearing are oval membranes located on the shins of the forelimbs on both sides. In males, the elytra are equipped with a chirring organ, which is formed by the stridulatory part and a transparent resonating membrane (mirror).
Green grasshoppers lead a solitary lifestyle. They jump and fly very well.
The length of the jump is several times the length of the insect itself, and the flight speed can reach up to 1.5 km / h.Grasshoppers do not have a home, they are always among grass, bushes and trees. In especially hot weather, the insect hides in the green all day, leaving shady shelters only early in the morning.
We hear the ringing melodies of a grasshopper throughout the summer. The sound is produced by vibration and becomes even louder if the insect raises its wings. Males sing in order to attract females or to let other males know that the territory is already occupied. The chirping of a grasshopper can most often be heard in the daytime and evening, less often at night.
Mating of green grasshoppers occurs within 45 minutes. After mating, the female begins to eat the spermatophore. This process can take up to 15 hours. The male already 15 minutes after mating resumes his chirring. 
Egg laying occurs at the end of summer. To do this, the female chooses a suitable place in the soil and lays up to 100 eggs in a shallow hole. The eggs are elongated, cylindrical, greenish in color. Egg length up to 6 mm.
Adults die with the onset of cold weather, and the eggs continue to be in the soil at a shallow depth all autumn and all winter. In the spring, when the surface layer of the earth begins to warm up, larvae hatch from the eggs. During their development, they shed 5 times. Then, bypassing the pupal stage, the larva will turn into a young grasshopper.
Green grasshoppers are predatory insects. They feed mainly 
caterpillars and other small insects, sometimes they eat larvae or weaker representatives of their species. Grasshoppers wait for their prey, sitting quietly in the grass, firmly grab it with 4 front paws and immediately eat it.
If it is difficult to find insects, grasshoppers can eat plant foods: flowers, foliage, tree buds, plant stems, grass, and some cereals.
Very often, the green grasshopper does harm by eating flowers, leaves and buds. Often, a grasshopper harms tobacco crops, citrus fruits, tea leaves and other plants.
This means that the larvae after the appearance have an external resemblance to adult insects, that is, they may have compound eyes, a similar structure of the mouth organs and the rudiments of future wings. The scientific name for these larvae is nymphs. Let's take a look at which orthopteran insects we meet most often, and what we know about them.
The order of Orthoptera in Latin is called Orthoptera. They are sometimes called jumping orthoptera. The order is subdivided into two isolated suborders: long-whiskered and short-whiskered.
Most often, orthopteran insects have a similar body structure. It is elongated, with a fairly large head and developed eyes. Gnawing mouthparts are most often directed downwards, but in some species (crickets) they are directed forward. On the front of the head are antennae of various shapes.
The chest and back are divided into three segments. The pronotum has developed lateral lobes that do not cover the head. The middle and rear sections of the back are combined and delimited by sharp seams. The same applies to the middle and rear sections of the chest.
Orthopteran insects have a characteristic shape of the hind legs. They are elongated compared to the front and have a thickening in the hips, which provides the ability to jump. However, there are species that have lost the ability to jump. There are a large number of spines along the hind legs, and several spurs at the end. The front and middle legs are designed for running, digging, or grasping movements.
An insect of the order Orthoptera has dense elytra of a leathery structure with many veins. They contain the main parts of the sound apparatus. The wings of this insect are fan-shaped. The posterior part of the abdomen ends in an anal plate, on the last sternite of which the genitals are located in males, and the ovipositor in females.
Scientists subdivide the following orders of insects: cockroaches, orthoptera, earwigs, and so on. All of them Apparently, this similarity was enough for scientists to unite them into one detachment. For some time, entomologists believed that orthopteran insects were part of the superorder Orthoptera and included the mole cricket, earwigs, cockroaches, and praying mantises. This statement was considered true until the end of the last century. But today, after many observations and comparisons, the Orthoptera superorder includes Orthoptera, that is, grasshoppers, crickets, bears, locusts and a separate detachment - earwigs.
Can you imagine that the grasshopper, familiar to everyone since childhood, belongs to one of the oldest orders of insects on Earth? The uncomplicated "trills" of the little musician have been heard for so long that it is hard to imagine. Grasshoppers do not know how to fly, but thanks to strong jumping hind legs, they are carried very far, helping themselves with thin wide wings. With some stretch, the jumps of these insects can still be equated with flight. An interesting feature of the grasshopper is that it makes sounds and hears them with its feet!
It is hard to imagine, but the ear of a grasshopper is located on the front legs and it is arranged in much the same way as a human ear. A thin membrane vibrates under the influence of sound, these vibrations capture sensitive nerve tissues, process them and send them to the brain. The grasshopper emits specific trills with its legs and elytra. Males have a "mirror" and a "bow" located on the right and left elytra. Stepping over its legs and vibrating its wings, the grasshopper emits a chirp that defines the boundaries of its territory and attracts females.
Cricket and bear are omnivorous insects. However, they prefer plant foods.
Crickets are known for their evening "chants". Often these insects settle in houses, finding themselves a dark secluded place. And in nature, they dig small holes for themselves for wintering. The cricket is able to publish different ones, some are intended for perception by females, while others scare away competitors.
Medvedka also digs underground passages. She generally leads an underground life, finding herself here not only food, but also shelter. The hind legs of these insects are not as highly developed as those of grasshoppers and crickets, but the front legs are strong enough to dig complex underground passages.
At night, bears can come to the surface. These insects can fly, but not well enough. The wings of the bear are folded in such a way as not to interfere with her moving forward and backward underground.
Usually, bears choose floodplains for life, but more and more often they are found in vegetable gardens and gardens. For summer residents, an invasion of a bear can be a real disaster.
As already noted, earwigs are a separate order in the superorder Orthoptera. These are small insects with short wings and a long body. Different types of earwigs have different flight abilities. Someone does not fly at all, someone flies, but badly.
Earwigs are omnivorous, leathery-winged insects. Favorite places of settlement for them - the area bordering on human habitation. Insects harm garden crops, but at the same time protect them from aphids and spider mites.
Earwigs are very fond of garden flowers. They destroy roses, peonies, phloxes, asters, but they will happily eat vegetables and root crops, they will not refuse young seedlings and decorative plantings.
Scientists have described more than 1300 species of these insects, about twenty of them are found in our latitudes. In addition to representatives living the entire gardening season, there are also mayfly earwigs, whose whole life flies by in 24 hours.
Orders of insects - cockroaches, orthoptera, earwigs, mayflies - are very interesting to study. Each of them has its own characteristics. Someone sings inviting songs for females in the evenings, someone is able to completely destroy agricultural crops. Understanding their habits, you can understand the degree of danger to your home or garden. This will help to take measures in the fight against pests in the garden and garden plot.
With the only modern family of the same name. Over 6800 species on all continents (except Antarctica).
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✪ Legs, wings...bow! Divine chorus. Type Arthropods, detachment Orthoptera.
Head with a separate apex of the vertex, often laterally compressed, sometimes cone-shaped. Tarsi 4-segmented. Pronotum with flat or convex top and flat lateral lobes lowered down. The elytra of the male often has a chirring organ. Venation with sharply isolated RS, strongly altered in the region of the chirring organ. Often the elytra and wings lose their flight functions, but retain, often enhanced, the chirring organ. The female ovipositor is, with very rare exceptions, long and laterally compressed.
During mating, the male suspends a spermatophore from the end of the female's abdomen. The spermatophore consists of a flask (the main part) and a spermatophylax (an additional part). The bottle is coated, has a narrow neck and two reinforcing blades. The inner cavity of the vial, which contains spermatozoa, is divided into two parts by a partition. Spermatophylax is a sticky mass.
The male inserts the neck of the flask into the female genital opening, while the flask itself and the spermatophylax remain outside. After mating, the female usually slowly eats the spermatophylax, while the sperm gradually flows from the vial into the oviduct, after which the female also eats the vial. A spermatophore suspended from the female's abdomen with spermatophylax weighing it down makes it difficult for the female to move and interferes with oviposition and re-mating. In this case, eating should be slow, otherwise the sperm will not have time to flow from the vial into the oviduct.
Most predatory and omnivorous species lay their eggs in the ground, immersing the ovipositor in it. Eggs are laid singly or in small groups of 5-10 pieces, held together by hardening secretions of the accessory sex glands. In herbivorous species, eggs are most often laid on the surface or inside the ground part of the plant.
The larvae hatch in spring and molt 4 to 6 times during their entire life cycle. After the first molt, rudiments of wings appear in the form of the posterior lower corners of the mesoscutum and metanotum drawn down and backward. After the third molt, the rudiments of the wings are located on the back, take a triangular shape, and longitudinal veins appear on them. After the last molt, fledging occurs.
As a rule, grasshopper larvae and nymphs differ from adults only in size and in the absence of normally developed wings. But there are species whose larvae are very different in appearance from adults. The strongest differences are observed during transformative mimicry, that is, when the larva has signs of mimicry that are absent in adults.
The sound apparatus is located on the elytra. On the right elytron there is a “mirror” in the form of a rounded thin transparent membrane surrounded by a thick stridulatory vein forming a frame. On the left elytron, the areolet is opaque, opaque, and rather dense. The stridulatory vein surrounding it is thick with teeth. This vein acts as a bow, and the "mirror" serves as a resonator for chirping.
When chirping, the grasshopper raises and pushes the elytra, and then sets them in a vibrating movement from side to side, as a result of which the teeth of the “bow” rub against the frame of the “mirror” of the right elytron.
Each type of grasshopper has a specific set of sounds it makes. In most cases, only males have a sound apparatus, but there are species in which females also chirp.
The auditory apparatus is located on the shins of the front legs and has oval membranes located on both sides of the lower leg and performing the function of eardrums. More often the membranes are open, in some species they are equipped with caps that cover the membranes almost completely. The internal part of the hearing aid has a complex structure, consisting of nerve endings, sensory cells, muscles and two branches of the trachea, each of which approaches its own eardrum. Due to the air pressure in the trachea, the membranes are always stretched.
Some Indo-Malay tree-dwelling grasshoppers mimic lichens. So, for example, Javanese Satrophilia ( Satrophyllia femorata), sitting motionless with antennae stretched forward and front legs on a tree branch, completely merges with the general background of lichens covering this branch.
The vast majority of grasshoppers are omnivorous with a predilection for predation. In fact, in many ways, grasshoppers are similar to praying mantises: the same camouflage hunters also grab prey with their serrated front legs. But some species feed only on plants. Several species are noted as agricultural pests. Usually, due to the low population density compared to locusts and grasshoppers, the harm from them is insignificant, but some species in certain years are able to form different phases, like locusts, and then the damage from them becomes more noticeable.
Surely many of you know about the existence of grasshoppers. These jumping insects live in almost all regions of our country. The only exceptions are the northern regions with an unfavorable cold climate. After reading today's article, you will understand how long grasshoppers live.
Grasshoppers can be recognized by their elongated torso and laterally compressed head, on which two faceted oval eyes are located. Depending on the species, the length of the body of an insect can vary from one and a half to fifteen centimeters. They have three pairs of legs that perform different functions. So, the rear muscular limbs are designed for jumping, and the two front pairs are for walking.
For those who do not know how long grasshoppers live in captivity, it will also be interesting that the distance that this insect jumps can be twenty times the total length of its body. The function is assigned to the sensitive antennae. Some varieties of grasshoppers have two pairs of wings, used not only for flights, but also as protection.
These insects prefer loneliness. For those who are trying to figure out how long grasshoppers live, it does not hurt to understand that they do not have their own home. They live among trees and bushes. In especially hot weather, insects hide in the grass all day, leaving shady shelters in the morning.
Throughout the summer, grasshoppers emit ringing melodies. These sounds are the result of vibration. They are intensified when insects raise their wings. The singing of males allows them to attract the attention of females and show rivals that this territory is already occupied.
For those who do not yet know how long grasshoppers live at home, it will be interesting that they are predators. The basis of their diet is caterpillars, butterflies and other small insects. In some cases, they can feed on larvae, as well as weaker members of their own species.
Waiting for its prey, the grasshopper quietly hides in the grass. It then grabs it with its four forelimbs and immediately eats it. If difficulties arise with the search, they can eat grass, plant stems, tree buds, foliage, flowers, and certain varieties of cereal crops.
Those who are interested in how long a grasshopper lives without food should understand that the mating season of these insects begins at the end of July and ends in the first half of September. Their mating lasts for 45 minutes. After that, the female eats the spermatophore. This process can take up to fifteen hours. As for the male, fifteen minutes after the end of mating, he resumes his singing.
For laying, the female chooses a suitable place and digs a not too deep hole there. At one time, she can produce about a hundred eggs of a greenish hue. All of them have an elongated cylindrical shape, and their length is about six millimeters.
With the onset of cold weather, adults die, and the eggs remain buried to a shallow depth throughout autumn and winter. In the spring, after the surface layer of the soil warms up, larvae appear from them, which, after five molts, turn into young insects.
For those who are interested in how long grasshoppers live, we will answer that, taking into account all stages of their development, the duration of their existence is a little more than one year. During this time, he manages to turn from an egg into an adult. If you skip the early ones, then it lives only one summer and dies with the onset of cold weather.
Having figured out how long grasshoppers live, it should be noted that most of the varieties of these insects do not do much harm. The only exceptions are those individuals that destroy tea and citrus plantations.
These insects are a common ingredient in many national Chinese dishes. They are also eaten by Asian and African natives.
The grasshopper has rather powerful jaws, so its bite can be quite painful for a person. Often these insects are kept in captivity as pets. Chinese breeders managed to breed several breeds, whose representatives are distinguished by beautiful singing. The cost of one such individual can reach twenty dollars.
Grasshoppers are settled in spacious aquariums, the bottom of which is strewn with sand. To avoid cannibalism, characteristic of adults, butterflies, spiders, flies, vegetables and fruits should be present in their diet. It is also recommended to feed them with lettuce leaves, berries and unripe ears of wild cereals.
During the period of laying eggs, it is advisable for females to be seated singly. Otherwise, they may begin to divide the territory, which will inevitably lead to fights and eating their own kind.
