Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Insect of the Week!

Short Horned Grasshopper
Orthoptera: Acrididae

While spending my spring break in cold Michigan I set aside some time to watch much the video data I had collected from the past summer. The point of this video is to observe what eats lady beetle egg masses. With populations of native lady beetles declining in Ohio, I am interested in finding out if predation by exotic lady beetles on native lady beetle eggs is a factor. I have been able to observe many different arthropods feeding on the egg masses and to my surprise, grasshoppers are among them!


This grasshopper has an interesting method for making sure it has many offspring. The male will ride on the back of the female for a day or more in order to prevent other males from mating with her. This behavior is called mate guarding.

http://bugguide.net/node/view/60915/bgimage: Copyright © 2006 Sean McCann


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