Daily Zoo Animal: #3, Plains Lubber Grasshopper.

[urbpan]

Plains lubber grasshoppper Brachystola magna

This large western grasshopper eats a wide variety of plants and is considered a pest of sunflower and cotton, but it also likes the taste of ragweed and dandelion. It lives in the grasslands of the American west, thriving in disturbed landscapes and occasionally increasing in numbers to plague proportions. Unlike many other grasshoppers its wings are reduced and it cannot fly.

This individual is in the invertebrate zoo in "A Bird's World" exhibit.

On this day in 365 urban species: Another day off, as my Dad and I made a stop in Forks, Washington.

Comments

[morty-baby.livejournal.com]

Ooo, that is very cool. I like it's 'knees'. How big is it?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

two and half, maybe three inches?

[morty-baby.livejournal.com]

That's pretty big. I think I might flail about and scream like a little girl if it ever landed on me.

wow

[sin-agua.livejournal.com]

I'll see your plains lubber and raise you a horse lubber:
http://www.arizonensis.org/sonoran/fieldguide/arthropoda/taeniopoda_eques.html

/the kind we have out here

Re: wow

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I bet that website gets a lot of hits from searches for "hot pink undergarments."

Re: wow

[sin-agua.livejournal.com]

Hehe - y'know I hadn't even noticed that bit of description when I linked to that page. Perhaps that's what your nature writing needs - a bit more perv! ;)

[by-steph.livejournal.com]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30924065@N00/992665012/
The ragweed and sunflowers are very abundant this year. I guess that explains all the grasshoppers. Two days in a row now I have been hit in the face by a grasshopper. The first time it happened I thought a bird flew into my face. Still, I prefer the grasshoppers to the crickets. Ew. Jumping cockroaches.

[hannah-jane.livejournal.com]

Cool. I don't know how good you are with invert IDs but I've got a couple I need help with. On the one photo, someone commented that it's a three-lined potato beetle but I'm not sure I agree with that. Have a look please and let me know if you can ID them. :)

Grasshopper

Beetle

[latenightdrives.livejournal.com]

Your awesome wife, Ms. cottonmanifesto told me I should add you because of your zoo animal pics, so I did! I hope you don't mind. :)

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Welcome! I hope you like 'em. :)

[bellelvsbeast.livejournal.com]

Oooh he seems so huge! How cool...:) That's so weird he can't fly...
Wait so you have the invertebrates in an exhibit about birds? Like showing people what birds eat kind of thing?