Green-striped Grasshopper

Description:

Green and brown phases. Females (like this one) are usually green, males usually brown. Wings faint yellow when spread, smoky brown to nearly black towards tip. Strong pronotal ridge. Green (or brown) stripe near the border of front wings. Southern and summer individuals are more strongly patterned, often with dark bars across part of front wings and on top of hind femora. Southern populations have been separated as a "species" C. australior, but are treated as a subspecies here, since there is no possible way to dray a line between the intergrading southern and northern populations. Assignment of individuals to one or the other subspecies is somewhat random in the Southeast north and inland from the coastal plain, where individuals can look like either subspecies, and are often intermediate in character.

Habitat:

Range is British Columbia to Atlantic Coast and south (mostly only east of the Rockies) to the Gulf Coast and through eastern Mexico to at at least Costa Rica. Limited to isolated colonies in far west (such as in Idaho, Utah, and western Colorado), and perhaps was introduced into some areas there. Habitat is relatively moist and sunny areas of short grass. Often found abundantly in hay meadows, along roadsides, and in grassy low lying areas. It can be found in most any sunny grassy area in East, but restricted to limited moist habitats in West.

Notes:

Season for adults is spring and early summer in North. Southward multiple-brooded with adults from end of winter to beginning of winter, and in far south may be found year-round.