“…This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand…”
–excerpt of The Summer Day by Mary Oliver
These late summer days are the time of grasshoppers. In places it seems as if they are blanketing the grass as dozens take wing with your every step. This is the final rush of grasshopper life – the brief adult period where grasshoppers mate and lay eggs before they die with the hard frosts. Grasshoppers go through simple metamorphosis. A grasshopper lays her eggs in the soil, and in the spring tiny nymphs hatch out, able to hop away from predators within minutes. They feed on grasses and other plants and grow quickly, molting four or five times over three months or so before they reach the adult stage with wings. Several generations hatch during the summer, so adults and nymphs of different sizes are often found at the same time.
Look closely at grasshoppers at this time of year. How many different kinds of grasshoppers can you find? There are 36 species in Vermont, according to the Vermont Orthoptera Atlas. Grasshopper have short antennae compared to the long antenna of crickets and katydids.
Can you jump like a grasshopper nymph? Fly like a grasshopper adult?
Find a male and a female grasshopper?
