If you look closely, even their eyes are speckled!
This interesting looking grasshopper is called a speckle-winged rangeland grasshopper. Its name is a mouthful so for the remainder of this article we will refer to it as the SWRG. This grasshopper is relatively small. The one in this photo is a little over an inch long. It is sitting motionless on a sassafras leaf hoping I don’t see it. I was able to approach the SWRG slowly with my macro lens, used for shooting close-up photos. If you approach slowly, you can observe these grasshoppers without spooking them. If you approach them quickly, they jump away in fear.
Their coloring is typically shades of brown or gray with a speckled pattern. If you look closely, even their eyes are speckled! Besides looking cool, this also serves as terrific camouflage. These grasshoppers can be found throughout North America, but they are concentrated in western Ontario south to Texas.
This grasshopper was perched on a sassafras plant. These native trees typically grow to around 20-30 feet in height. Their leaves are very distinct. Their leaves have three rounded lobes and smell like Fruit Loops. Sassafras roots were the primary flavor in the making of root beer. In addition to root beer, people have ground up their leaves to make into a spice called “filé”. This spice is used as a thickener and flavor contributor to the creole dish gumbo. In addition to food usage, sassafras was used by Native Americans for medical purposes. Natives would brew teas to help with fevers, colds, rheumatism, and diarrhea. They would also apply sassafras to wounds, stings, and sores.
This photograph was taken in Platte River State Park, near Omaha Nebraska. This sizeable recreation area is ~453 acres along the bluffs on the Platte River. The park was established in 1982 when three areas (two camps and a woodland area) were combined into one impressive State Park. There is plenty to do in this park including mountain biking, hiking, paddling, fishing, picnicking, and camping. I visited this area in July of this year and found it to be a hidden gem in Nebraska.
This grasshopper was perched on a sassafras plant
Did you know?
- Female speckle-winged rangeland grasshoppers grow to be larger than males.
- Speckle-winged rangeland grasshoppers can be found in Alaska!
- Platte River State Park has an 85-foot-tall observation tower that offers panoramic views of eastern Nebraska.
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