Giant Red-winged Grasshopper

A fully grown Giant Red-winged Grasshopper is an awesome sight, especially on the wing. You might think you’ve seen a small red bird flying past, except for those long, trailing grasshopper legs.  Adults, whose wings are full-length after the final molt, are usually mottled brown; but the one I sketched was this brilliant green. I checked with Dr. Bob Thomas at Loyola U., who confirmed the ID and suggested it might be green because it is newly molted.

Brilliantly marked with yellow and black stripes, the  Giant Red-winged Grasshopper nymph above will shed its brightly marked skin a couple more times before it reaches its full length of 5″ – 6,” the world’s largest grasshopper. The bright colors are probably a warning to predators that the juveniles taste bad or are toxic.

Here are some photos of immature GRGs from my Project Noah site, where I post photos of native species from places I have visited. The juvenile grasshopper pictured above is sometimes misnamed the “zebra grasshopper.” Here’s a link to what a typical brown adult looks like.  

Watch out for the seriously powerful legs lined with sharp spines, even in the nymphal stage. If you try to catch one with bare hands, you may be sorry. The spines help it repel predators, and the legs themselves can launch the grasshopper quite some distance, particularly when it takes off from a tree branch on wings which can spread to nine inches. 

Unlike many grasshoppers which prefer savannas or arid grasslands, the Giant Red-winged Grasshopper is an important rainforest denizen, fitting nicely into the ecosystem. Unfortunately, outside the rainforest, it is a serious agricultural pest in Belizean orchards More information here.