CLOSED: What kind of grasshopper?

I searched through the "Orthoptera" and didn't see any pics that looked the same, anyone know what type of grasshopper these bad little things are? They eat my plants fiercly!

These appear to be southeastern lubber grasshoppers, Romalea microptera - see http://tinyurl.com/y8q46jx for an image, and http://tinyurl.com/ye4s656 for a guide to Florida grasshoppers.

Pureplants....they eat foliage, flowers and bulbs and when they hatch out in early spring, there are usually somewhere around 2 or 3 dozen in a clutch and are maybe 1/4 inch long.We used wasp spray on the babies. They seem to love munching on Crinums, daylilies, agapanthus, lycoris and amaryllis. In the Spring, we killed dozens of hatchlings and over the course of the Summer we have actually kept a rough count of the ones we have killed....over 150 as of yesterday.

They can strip the flowers off a lycoris on next to nothing....my advice....crush every one you see.

Thanks! Yes they are eating everything! I have large nightblooming jasmine bushes that have been dwindled to almost nothing! Not to mention some of my other plants like philanderons (bad spelling there I know) and even bromeliads.

Have a stomping party every time you see one....they are evil pests....grin

I see these all the time on my property about twice a year. They're actually pretty fascinating (to me, anyway!) At one point in the year, I start seeing lots of small black grasshoppers (they look much more like crickets) with either a yellow or orange stripe on their back. Then they'll disappear for a while, until they come back looking like the photo I've attached. It was someone else that had told me the "crickets" and giant ones are the same creature, so I hope they were correct. They must be poisonous to other animals & insects because it's one of the only bugs that none of the spiders, fish, etc. on my property will eat. All the insect predators avoid them like the plague. I've seen birds, raccoons & opossums eat them, too, and then throw up almost right away! Fascinating... (lol)

This message was edited Oct 3, 2009 8:01 PM

One of the common names is Tobacco juice grasshopper and Creosote grasshopper. The can "spit" a nasty juice when caught. I cut them in half with the pruners, or slam them onto concrete and smash them. I am over their fascination due to the damage they do.....grin

ncaptiva,

I have seen the same black grasshoppers too, you think they are the same? Nice pic, I found them fascinating as well until they started seriously devouring my plants, then I got over the fascination really quick...lol Thanks for sharing!!

themoonhowl,

I would be mortified if they spit nasty juice at me!!! lol yikes!!!!

It is more of an ooze than an actual spit....still pretty disgusting....I think of them as some kind of truly alien entity....

i've mentioned this many times before but anything containing Spinosad seems to stop them fairly quickly. Spinosad works in a similar way to Bt so it is considered organic and safe for pets/people. it is fairly expensive but i've found that Fertilome Borer, Bagworm and Leafminer Spray (available at ACE hardware) contains Spinosad and is much more economical. they get a stomach ache and die. yay! lol

I just think they're the coolest things (lol)... but I'm on 12 acres of dense property with more than enough plants, so they don't bother me =) PurePlants, someone told me a long time ago that the black ones and the giant lubbers are the same creature, so it's possible I could've been misinformed, but it doesn't seem like it. The raccoons, birds, opossums, spiders (even banana spiders!), fish (bass, brim, tilapia, catfish), etc. will NOT eat either of them (the small black ones or the giant ones), and if they do, they throw up right away (the mammals & birds do). The spiders surprised me the most. I toss crickets & stuff into my banana spiders' webs all the time, and they won't go near the little black ones.

And yes, it's SO true about the tobacco spit. It comes out like molasses, and it will stain everything. They just stare right at you & proceed to assault you salivarily (lol... I love making up words that I think should be words anyway).

Another reason I like them so much is because they seem like the most awesome high school dissection project. It's a giant version of a smaller, common creature... how could it not be a great dissection specimen? lol... I even looked into it, and companies do sell lubbers for science class dissection. I figured there are SO many of them at my property, why not see if there's a way to make a little money?

Yep, that is a hatching of lubbers

Well heck if you have 'em and can make some money off them, more power to ya! Good luck with that! I can't stand squishing anything so I end up spraying them, thanks for the tip tracksinsand!