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Related: Culture Forums, Support Forumsand they have the MOST brilliant salmon colored wings. also a non-PC common name - Mexican Generals
Ptah
(33,032 posts)Besides each other, what do they eat?
On another note, I found the burnt motel:
I have never learned the names of the streets in either Benson or Willcox, so I just have to use the landmarks that I know.
I am not sure what else they eat to tell you the truth - I see them up in all kinds of plants in the late evening - Mormon Tea, Mesquites, Burroweed, patches of tall bunchgrasses, etc. even on ocotillos, but I am not sure they are actually feeding. I do see them on the road eating their flattened compadres - the cycle seems kind of endless in some places.
I haven't seen much of anything else eat them other than large preying mantises. My chickens don't care for them at all, though they love the smaller regular hoppers.
Chan790
(20,176 posts)Their closest relatives are not other grasshoppers but locusts. They are pestilence species which lay larvae in clusters capable devouring entire plants and live in large groups making them capable of devastating entire fields of crops. (Think Biblical locust plagues) Most Southern states actively spray and bait to eradicate them. They're huge, some species grow to 8cm though most are closer to 4cm. They come in a variety of bright colors.
Also they're poisonous. They have only one predator, the loggerhead shrike...an equally-fantastic bird...it kills its prey by decapitating it and impaling it on branches to rot. The rotting breaks down the poison.