The Devastating Grasshopper is Back!

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!

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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