TAXONOMY:
(View Orders)
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
   Class:Insecta
    Order: Orthoptera
     Family: Acrididae
      Genus: Melanoplus
       Species: ponderosus

CHARACTERISTICS: Spur-throated Grasshoppers (part of the Short-horned Grasshopper family) are the most common species of grasshopper in all of North America. Noted mostly for the damage that inflict to crops in the Midwest states, the Spur-throated Grasshopper appears as a yellow, orange or green insect with additional coloring of brown or red. The body may be spectacularly colored in some cases, with bands, spots or blotches throughout and antennas are generally short. Size for the Spur-throated Grasshopper ranges from 25mm to about 34mm.

The female of the species will tend to lay her eggs (sometimes numbering as much as twenty eggs) straight into the soil which will sit over the winter months, producing only one generation per year. These hatchlings will then mature early in the summer (throughout the Southern states) and feed through to December only to have the process be repeated once with new generations the following year.

Sput-Throated Grasshoppers will generally be found in fields and open meadows, traveling from place to place. Their reach may be past the mentioned states, as they have been known to reach as far north as southern Canada and throughout the United States.

Tennessee, Mississippi, New Mexico, Iowa, Illinois, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky

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Courtesy of www.sidney.ars.usda.gov

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