Pictured Grasshopper
The Pictured Grasshopper, also known as the Rainbow or Painted Grasshopper, is one of the few grasshopper species exhibiting warning coloration of red and yellow to signal its unpalatability to potential predators a.k.a. “aposematism.”
Although brightly colored, adult Pictured Grasshoppers blend in well with their natural habitat of shortgrass prairie and low-lying vegetation. Native to the western edge of the Great Plains, these grasshoppers can be spotted (pun intended) all the way from Alberta, Canada, down to northern Mexico and its impressive coloring can vary from region to region. This wingless species of grasshopper feeds on various forbes, herbacious flowering plants, but not grasses. Pictured Grasshoppers are univoltine, meaning they only produce one generation of brood in a year. In the fall, females oviposit their eggs underground in soft soil or sand where they spend winter beneath the surface protected from the harsh environment above. These eggs hatch during late spring to early summer. Like all insects, grasshoppers use the sun to control body temperature so they are more active from mid-summer into early fall.
This particular specimen was databased and imaged into the CU Museum of Natural History’s Entomology Collections as a part of a grant provided by a larger collections network called SCAN (Symbiota Collections of Arthropods Network). SCAN is made up of a centralized database of arthropod collections from over 100 North American collections, including high resolution images like this one. The Pictured Grasshopper specimen pictured here was collected at Picture Canyon Campground in Colorado’s own Comanche National Grassland—we like to think this was a picture-perfect addition to our collection!
Capinera, J.L., R.D. Scott, and T.J. Walker. 2004. Field Guide to Grasshoppers, Katydids, and Crickets of the United States. Ithaca, NY. Cornell University Press.
Capinera, J.L. and T.S. Sechrist. 1982. Grasshoppers of Colorado: Identification, Biology, and Management. Fort Collins, CO: Colorado State University Experiment Station, Bulletin 584S. 161p.
SCAN. Symbiota Collections of Arthropods Network (SCAN): A Data Portal Built to Visualize, Manipulate, and Export Species Occurrences. https://scan-bugs.org/portal/.
Vickery, V.R. and D.K.M. Kevan. 1985. The Insects and Arachnids of Canada, Part 14. In “The Grasshoppers, Crickets and Related Insects of Canada and Adjacent Regions”. Canadian Government Publishing Centre, Ottawa, Canada. 918 p.
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