New Zealand grasshopper
The New Zealand grasshopper is a small grasshopper that lives only in New Zealand. Its wings are tiny, just 1 to 3 millimetres, so it cannot fly. It loves sunbathing in open grassy places to warm up.
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Fun facts
Once in a while a grasshopper hatches with full-size wings, but this is very rare.
Some are plain brown, while others have white stripes edged in black. A few are green.
It even lives on the Chatham Islands, about 850 kilometres away from mainland New Zealand.
Birds like starlings, magpies and pipits eat it, and so do hedgehogs.
It can live high up in the mountains, at 1,350 metres.
Most asked questions about New Zealand grasshopper
?Can the New Zealand grasshopper fly?
Almost never. Most have tiny wings and cannot fly.
?How big is the New Zealand grasshopper?
Males are about 1 to 1.5 centimetres long and females about 2 to 3 centimetres.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Phaulacridium marginale
- Group
- Grasshoppers and crickets
- Family
- Acrididae
- Classification
- Insecta > Orthoptera > Acrididae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Phaulacridium marginale (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Robert Briggs. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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