Grasshopper: The jumping champion with spring legs

The grasshopper is the jumping champion of the grassland. You reach for it and it flickers away, too fast to follow — all thanks to a pair of "spring" hind legs. Let's meet this leaping little athlete.

Its body

A grasshopper's hind thigh is thick and strong, holding an elastic protein inside. When the leg bends, that protein stores energy; at the moment of the leap it releases in an instant, kicking the grasshopper into the air, and the wings take over from there. Its "ears" are patches on the sides of its first abdominal segment, like a pair of little drum membranes. When a male courts, he rasps a hind leg against a forewing to make a "chirp".

Where it lives and what it eats

Grasshoppers are plant-eaters, feeding on grass and other grasses, and they are an important link in the grassland food chain — birds, spiders and mantises all eat them. They are close relatives of locusts: some grasshoppers, when crowded, gather into swarms and migrate as fearsome "locust plagues". Most of the time, though, this is a quiet little "sprite of the grassland".

A note for grown-ups

You could catch a grasshopper gently with a child (being careful not to hurt it) and look at those strong hind legs. Ask: "Do you know why it can leap so far?" The answer is the little spring inside its legs. Observing, then asking, is the most natural way to get to know an insect.