We love these insects\u00a0because they jump, and because they sing. Grasshoppers use their hindleg for both those things.<\/p>\n
What could a grasshopper\u00a0be without a hindleg?<\/p>\n
Apparently, he could be just fine.<\/p>\n
Insects have evolved with many very ingenious defenses. Camouflage is the first defense for many of the Orthoptera<\/em> (see: Katydid<\/a>). If pursued, though, some\u00a0can emit poison, or throw up on their attacker. They also jump and kick with their hindlegs.<\/p>\n According to my favorite bug reference,\u00a0Firefly Encyclopedia of Insects and Spiders<\/a>,<\/p>\n If held by a hindleg, a grasshopper will sacrifice the limb by the contraction of a special muscle at the base. A small diaphragm immediately closes the wound and prevents infection or massive blood loss.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That must be what happened to this guy.<\/p>\n I tried not to freak him out. I’ve found if you move slowly, you can capture photos of lots of insects.<\/p>\n After a couple of frames, suddenly – he jumped! About six inches, right onto a kerosene lantern.<\/p>\n He may be one-legged, but he ain’t disabled.<\/p>\n In case you want a view of a cricket\u00a0leg (as opposed to a grasshopper) – here’s another one that was hitchhiking on Tom’s daypack:<\/p>\n How to tell the difference between grasshoppers and crickets<\/a>? Easiest is by the length of their antennas – crickets have long antennas, like the hitchhiker\u00a0above; grasshoppers have short ones, like my one-legger in the featured image.<\/p>\n Today’s penny is a 2002. Two species of Orthoptera<\/em>\u00a0in the US are extinct, according to the Firefly Encyclopedia, which was published in that year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When we’re at the cabin, we sit around for hours, reading or just looking at nature. Booger Hollow is that kind of place. Sitting\u00a0still, outside,\u00a0gives me the chance to observe lots of insects. So I saw this guy. He was moving along the railing and I got closer to watch. Then I noticed he was … read more The one-legged grasshopper<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[321],"tags":[439,220,965,529,968,964,967,966,951],"class_list":["post-8104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tress","tag-439","tag-booger-hollow","tag-cricket","tag-defense","tag-grasshopper","tag-insect","tag-leg","tag-orthoptera","tag-predators"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8104"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8108,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8104\/revisions\/8108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"IMG_6245\"](\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/IMG_6245.jpg\")
<\/p>\n