Rufous grasshopper
| Rufous grasshopper | |
|---|---|
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| Male | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Orthoptera |
| Superfamily: | Acridoidea |
| Family: | Acrididae |
| Genus: | Gomphocerippus |
| Species: | G. rufus |
| Binomial name | |
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Gomphocerippus rufus (Linnaeus, 1758) |
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| Synonyms | |
The rufous grasshopper is a medium-sized, broad, brown, 'short-horned' grasshopper with clubbed antennae that are tipped with a conspicuous white or pale color. This insect is known as both Gomphocerippus rufus and Gomphocerus rufus. It is fairly large, averaging 14 to 22 mm in length. It is of the subfamily Gomphocerinae in the family Acrididae, the predominant family of grasshoppers. This species is present in most of Europe, in the eastern Palearctic ecozone and in the Near East. It can be encountered from late July through mid-December, usually in dry or slightly moist habitats. The environments in which it typically resides include dry grassland on calcareous soils, sheltered valleys with scrub, and the open borders of forests. It feeds on grasses and various herbaceous plants. It is known for its distinctive courtship song and accompanying display.
Males range from 14 to 16 mm, while females range from 17 to 22 mm. The coloration is usually shades of brown, but features some gray, yellow, and red. The mature male has an abdomen tipped with orange-red. The female has similar coloration, but it is much less pronounced than in males. Some females are reddish purple. The club on the antenna is distinct, flattened, expanded, and apical, or at the tip. The pronotum features a central seam. The wings are present in both sexes. The forewings are longer in the males, where they reach just beyond the primary joint of the hindlegs, than in the females, where they fall short of this joint.
The rufous grasshopper is usually found in open land, particularly terrain such as meadows, pastures, and forest edges that feature tall grass. More specifically, it can often be found in chalk grassland. It has been found on southern slopes of the Alps up to approximately 8100 feet. It prefers warm environments of moisture levels ranging from dry to moist. Very common locations include regions of Europe, including Germany, Sweden, France, and the United Kingdom. In fact, it can be found across almost all of Europe and Asia, ranging from France to parts of Siberia and from Scandinavia to northern Germany.
These adept climbers prefer to avoid remaining on the ground, and instead perch on plants in sunny, elevated areas. As such they tend to live near herbaceous, taller plants and only by short plants infrequently. One situation that illustrates this preference well was the outbreak of the myxomatosis virus in rabbits in Britain in the 1950s. The rabbit population became severely depleted. As rabbits have the effect of cropping grass short to eat it, this decrease in the population led to less cropped grass. Some wildlife, such as the large blue butterfly, suffered immensely because of their dependence on short grass, but other organisms, like the rufous grasshopper, prospered because the lack of rabbits led to an increase in long grass.
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Wikipedia