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Sticker of Grey bird grasshopper
Bug card No. 0694 of 1,500

Grey bird grasshopper

Schistocerca nitens
Eats: PlantsGrasshoppers and cricketsDeserts and dry places6 legs

The grey bird grasshopper is a big grasshopper with a speckled coat of grey, brown and yellow. It is a close cousin of the desert locust. It is a great flier and can even cross the open sea.

Lives in
Southern North America, Central and South America, and Hawaii, where people did not want it
Length
4 to 7 cm (1.6 to 2.8 in)
Top speed
about 14 km/h (8.7 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. It is only a problem for plants.
What does it eat?
It eats many kinds of plants, including garden flowers and farm crops.
For real!Photo of Grey bird grasshopper
Picture by Greg Hume. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Grey bird grasshopper about 7 cm long (2.8 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
as long as 2 toy building bricks in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 0.3 secondsmoves 56 times its own body length every second

How big is Grey bird grasshopper compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It can fly at least 480 kilometres across the ocean.

2

In 2004 so many of them lived on the Hawaiian island of Nihoa that they ate about nine tenths of all the plants there.

3

The mother pushes her eggs into the soil in pods that can hold more than 100 eggs.

4

Females are bigger than males, up to 7 centimetres long.

5

You can find it at any stage of life at any time of year.

you asked

Most asked questions about Grey bird grasshopper

?Is the grey bird grasshopper a locust?

No. It is a close relative of the desert locust, but it does not change into a swarming form like real locusts.

?How big is the grey bird grasshopper?

Females are 6 to 7 centimetres long and males 4 to 5 centimetres.

?What does the grey bird grasshopper eat?

Many plants, including garden plants and crops.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Schistocerca nitens
Group
Grasshoppers and crickets
Family
Acrididae
Classification
Insecta > Orthoptera > Acrididae
Lives on
North America, South America, Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Vagrant grasshopper, Gray bird grasshopper

Where the facts come from

  1. Schistocerca nitens (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Greg Hume. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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