Today, we were surprised to find back the escaped Devastating Grasshopper (Melanoplus devastator) that we had caught from Canyon Trail Park (El Cerrito, CA) on 6/26!

All the back on 6/26, almost a month ago when we went down to Canyon Trail Park in El Cerrito, we managed to snag two Devastating Grasshoppers (Melanoplus devastator) nymphs out of an entire dry grass field covered in them. Upon taking them outside to take pictures, one of them had escaped into a little patch of dry grass in our backyard. It had disappeared so quickly that we didn't bother to try to find it back. 

As for the other grasshopper, we kept it in its little container and cared for it until it mysteriously died on 7/7. Since we haven't been back to Canyon Trail during the day time since then and don't plan on it any time soon, we thought we would never see a Devastating Grasshopper for a while. But today, we found one right in our backyard in the exact same little dry grass patch. We assumed that it was the same one that had escaped since we have never seen a Devastating Grasshopper anywhere in the city, let alone our yard! What a big surprise that was. It looks like an instar ahead of where it was when it escaped.

Of course, the problem with recapturing is figuring out how to keep it from meeting the same fate as the one that remained with us. This time we are changing things up a bit and are feeding it a variety of little dry grasses and weeds picked from the dry grass patch as well as some cabbage. We might also attempt feeding it some other stuff in the future to supplement its diet and hopefully it won't die.

- Brian

Sadly, the Devastator Grasshopper (Melanoplus devastator) we caught on 6/26 has perished just like the Pallid-wings (Trimerotropis pallidipennis).

When we caught the the Devastator Grasshoppers on 6/26 at Canyon Trail Park, El Cerrito, it was yet again triggered by the "act first think later" mentality. We had never reared them before, had never even seen them before that date, and generally have failed miserably to rear other grasshoppers in the past such as the Pallid-wing Grasshopper that died on 6/22. And still, we decided to catch them for some nice photo shoots and deal with keeping them alive later.

All the way up until a few days ago since we caught it, our single Devastator Grasshopper (the other ones escaped while taking photos) seemed pretty comfortable in the new home we made it (described here). Everyday it would hop around and take a bite of the dead grass we gave it and generally seemed fine with the way we were treating it. It seemed to love picking off the little seeds on the grass and eating them like a squirrel (yes, it holds its food to its mouth using its front two legs as hands). At the time, it really didn't seem much harder than keeping katydids (Scudderia mexicana and Phaneroptera nana) which we have never had any mysterious deaths with. 

But a few days ago, it seemed to be getting weak, the same vague symptom we saw in our Pallid-wing a few days before it died. By yesterday, it's fate seemed almost sealed -- it wasn't hopping around at all and wasn't eating. At first glance, it might've seemed like these were symptoms of a nearing molt. But it clearly wasn't because by today it was dead with no injuries or any sign of a molting whatsoever, let alone a mismolt. It was just sitting at the bottom of the container, completely limp and lifeless. 

We really don't know what to say about this rather mysterious and abrupt death. Never have we ever been able to keep grasshoppers alive for long despite our roaring success with katydids. Their needs are simply too diverse and what applies to one group of Orthoptera simply doesn't apply to another, even if they are native to the exact same region. We will certainly have to learn from our mistakes and figure this out if we ever wish to include a grasshopper section to our Orthoptera Rearing Guide. 

- Brian

This weekend at Canyon Trail Park, El Cerrito, we happened to stepped upon a field that was infested -- or should we say devastated -- by Devestator Grasshoppers (Melanoplus devastator)!

Canyon Trail Park is a pretty nice site for finding Pipevine Swallowtails (Battus philenor). It happens to be one of the few natural areas left with a stand of wild-growing California Pipevine (Aristolochia californica) and, as you could probably guess, that was what we had originally come for this Sunday 6/26.

​There, the pipevine grows atop an elevated (mountainous) area where there are big trees and other vines (bramble and ivy) that provide with the shade it like and also something for it to crawl on. On the other hand, the bottom portion of this area is a very open area consisting of a large field of dried grass interspersed with a few little shrubs and Coast Live Oak trees (Quercus agrifolia). Yesterday (6/25) we had found a curious looking grasshopper nymph among the grasses as we were picking pipevine leaves for our caterpillars. At the time it was starting to get dark so it was difficult to catch or see if there were any more.

But today, when we came again in the blazing hot afternoon, we immediately realized that they place was covered in these grasshoppers. As soon as we step foot in their territory, they would spring out in front of us like a bunch of bullets to avoid our step. They were all about the same size, probably somewhere in the middle instars. With so many of them hopping in every direction, there were clearly far too many of them for us to catch (not that we would want to anyway) so, equipped with a little plastic container, we ended up just snagging two of them so we could later observe and identify them. 

After we got home, we identified these grasshoppers as Devasting Grasshoppers (Melanoplus devastator). One of them had even molted on the way and we decided took them both outside to get a few shots, but unfortunately one of them escaped in the process. With the remaining grasshopper, we decided that we may as well try to make a home for it since we weren't going to be letting it go any time soon. However,  we had never raised any of these kinds of grasshoppers, with the only grasshopper we have kept being the Pallid-wing Grasshopper (​Trimerotropis pallidipennis). Whenever we had tried to keep these, they have always died within a week or so because we could not figure out a suitable habitat and what they preferred to eat. Luckily, the little devastator seemed to be pretty happy in the plastic container it was caught in and we left it in there with a few fresh weeds we had picked in our yard. We had seen the Pallid-wings eating dead grass and because we had found the Devastating Grasshoppers in dead grass field, we were afraid it might not readily accept the fresh weeds but it did. Hopefully, we can keep it alive and see how beautiful it becomes when it is an adult!

- Brian