The city-jungle mentioned in my previous posts helped me watch a green grasshopper from real close, for the very first time. Before that I guess I must have come across these tiny long-leaping creatures but may not have noticed or paid attention to. This encounter also, was totally unexpected and accidental. I’d noticed this chameleon hiding inside the bushes on one of the branches, sitting still to prey. In order to get closer to the chameleon, I had to walk through an area of grass which was lush green and had grown about knee height. Just as I took my first step into the grassy area, I noticed a few green things jump high and far. I kept tracked the position where on of those tiny creatures landed and using the 50X zoom of my Canon PowerShot SX50 HS digital camera, I noticed the grasshopper sitting stuck to the tall grass. Lush green grass and lush green grasshopper easily camouflaged, easy to miss. They were there all the time but I just couldn’t see. Redish orange eye with a dark dot, it kept looking at me while I shot some pictures. That was one accidentally amazing experience.
The 2nd encounter was with a common field grasshopper when I had been to this agro-tourism resort called “Majhya Mamacha Gaon” in Mundhar, Maharashtra. This place is close to Guhagar. At this agro-tourism resort, they had kept these areca nuts to dry under the sun. These had almost dried and become muddy brown in color. I happened to get close to this heap of dried areca nuts when I ws trying to get some shots of a green bee eater. A soon as I reached close to the heap of nuts, I this little common field grasshopper happened to jump on my foot and back into the heap. As soon as it landed, it remained still for a long time again allowing me to get some pictures of it.
It is after this episode that I googled about grasshoppers to find out more information and as usual landing on Wikipedia which seems to be a treasure of knowledge.
Here’s a bit of it. Of course this information referred to from Wikipedia and I’m not at all trying to show off… 😀
What is a grasshopper?
Grasshopper is an insect of the order orthoptera, suborder caelifera. They are typically ground-dwelling insects with powerful hind legs. They use their hind legs to escape from threats by leaping vigorously.
What to do grasshoppers eat?
Most grasshoppers are polyphagous, eating vegetation from multiple plant sources. Some of them are omnivorous and also eat animal tissue and animal faeces. In general, they prefer grass including many cereals grown as crops.
