Common Green Grasshopper
Omocestus viridulus
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The long, accelerating sewing-machine whirr from a damp meadow on a July afternoon.
A medium-sized, usually bright green grasshopper — males often have a brownish or reddish tinge to the abdomen — with straight rather than sharply angled side keels on the pronotum. It is a species of damp, unimproved, taller grassland: hay meadow, moorland edge, rushy pasture and woodland ride, which is common ground around Dumfries.
Behaviour
The song is the best way to find it: a long, steady, accelerating whirring that runs for fifteen or twenty seconds, quite unlike the short bursts of most other grasshoppers. It is produced by rubbing a row of pegs on the hind leg against a hardened wing vein. It is one of the earliest grasshoppers to mature each year, so it is often singing before others have appeared.
When to see it
Quick facts
- Family
- Short-horned grasshoppers (Acrididae)
- Size
- 14–23 mm
- Status
- Native; common in damp unimproved grassland
Photo by Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons