What is a grasshopper? How many types of grasshoppers are there?

There are more than 12,000 species of grasshoppers in the world. They are distributed in tropical and temperate grasslands and deserts around the world. They mainly harm grass plants and are agricultural pests, which are extremely harmful to agriculture. There are also several types of grasshoppers. Let's learn about them to facilitate your daily identification.

Contents of this article

1. What is a grasshopper?

2. How many types of grasshoppers are there?

3. Do grasshoppers drink water?

What is a grasshopper?

1. Grasshopper, the common name for locust, has chewing mouthparts and is a herbivorous insect.

2. Its tentacles are short whip-shaped, and it has powerful hind legs, which it can use to bounce to avoid its predators.

3. The forewings are narrow and tough, while the hind wings are broad and soft, and are good at flying.

4. The body color is green and brown, which is the protective color of the living environment. Locusts have large mouths and well-developed jaws. They feed on plant leaves. Locusts like to eat reeds, barnyard grass, white grass, dogtooth grass and wormwood, shrimp grass and sea salicornia.

5. There are more than 12,000 species in the world. They are distributed in tropical and temperate grasslands and desert areas around the world. They mainly harm grass plants and are agricultural pests, which are extremely harmful to agriculture.

How many types of grasshoppers are there?

There are five types of grasshoppers: ground locust, rice locust, East Asian migratory locust, cotton locust, and bamboo locust.

1. Earth locusts are also called earth grasshoppers. Common ones include stupid locusts, short-winged locusts, black-backed locusts, and sharp-winged locusts. They are a type of locusts, slightly similar in shape to migratory locusts, and are widely distributed. They mostly live on high hills, embankments, and fields in mountainous slopes and low-lying plains.

In addition to harming food crops, they can also harm cotton, vegetables, etc. However, they do not fly in groups and rarely fly to distant areas, so they are less harmful than migratory locusts.

2. Rice locust is a general term for all species of insects of the order Orthoptera, family Acrididae, and genus Oxya.

3. The East Asian migratory locust grows under natural temperature conditions and has two generations a year. The first generation is called summer locust and the second generation is autumn locust. Migratory locusts have six legs and their bodies are divided into three parts: head, thorax and abdomen.

4. Cotton locust, also known as big blue locust, is a kind of locust belonging to the genus Cotton Locust, subfamily Cotton Locust, order Orthoptera, family Acrididae, and subfamily Acridinae.

5. Bamboo locusts are common bamboo pests of the family Acrididae. When they occur on a large scale, they often cause large tracts of bamboo forests to die. Drought can cause bamboo locusts to eat more, grow faster, and reproduce more actively.

Do grasshoppers drink water?

Grasshoppers do not drink water. Grasshoppers can absorb water from food. Grasshoppers refer to locusts, which belong to the order Orthoptera, including species of the superfamily Tetrigoidea, the superfamily Grasshopper, and the superfamily Acridoidea. There are more than 10,000 species in the world, and more than 1,000 species in China. They are distributed in tropical and temperate grasslands and desert areas around the world. Locusts mainly include migratory locusts and earth locusts. There are three types of migratory locusts in China: the East Asian migratory locust, the Asian migratory locust, and the Tibetan migratory locust. Among them, the East Asian migratory locust has the widest distribution in China and causes the most serious damage. It is an agricultural pest.

Morphology (taking the East Asian migratory locust as an example):

Adult: Male adult body length is 35.5-41.5 mm, female adult body length is 39.5-51.2 mm. The body is usually green or yellowish brown, which often varies due to environmental factors. The face is vertical, and the antennae are pale yellow. The middle carina of the pronotum is well developed, and it is slightly arc-shaped when viewed from the side in the solitary type, and slightly concave in the gregarious type, and there are often dark longitudinal stripes on both sides. The forewings are narrow and long, often exceeding the middle of the tibia of the hind legs, with brown and dark markings, which are darker in the gregarious type. The hind wings are colorless and transparent. The gregarious type sometimes has 2 inconspicuous dark stripes on the upper side of the hind leg femur, which are often absent or inconspicuous in the solitary type. The tibia of the hind legs is usually orange-red, and the gregarious type is slightly lighter, and there are usually 10 to 11 spines along the outer edge.