Grasshopper

The term Grasshoppers may also refer to Grasshopper-Club Zürich.

Caelifera is a suborder of herbivorous insects of the order Orthoptera, commonly known as grasshoppers.

This suborder includes many families of grasshoppers. Grasshoppers can jump long distances with their powerful hind legs and most are also capable of flight. Swarming grasshoppers are called locusts. Real grasshoppers have short antennae. "Grasshoppers" with antennae that are as long as or longer than their body are in fact bush crickets or katydids.

Grasshoppers develop through stages that progressively get larger in body and wing size. This development is referred to as hemimetabolous or incomplete development.

Taxonomically, Borror and White (1970) note that the hind femora are usually enlarged, tarsi have three segments or less, antennae are relatively short, tympana are usually present on the sides fo the first abdomenal segment, and the ovipositor is short. Taxonomic descriptions of the families are more specific.

Grasshoppers as food

In many places around the world, grasshoppers are eaten as a good source of protein. Supposedly, some countries instruct military personnel to collect grasshoppers to eat as a food source.

Locusts

When populations of certain species of Short-horned grasshoppers of the family Acrididae grow too big, its members start swarming and transform into locusts. Locust swarms are known to cause massive damage to crops.

(Tropidacris violaceus) is two inches (5 cm) long.