The painted grasshopper
It is also called the painted grasshopper, or the barber pole grasshopper, for its stripes.
The desert · Grasshoppers, crickets, mantises and stick insects
Rainbow grasshopper
Dactylotum bicolor
A stubby grasshopper boldly patterned in blue-black, red and yellow.
- Size
- 2 to 3.5cm long
- Look for it
- July to October
- Where
- Dry grassland and desert from the Great Plains to northern Mexico
Hops after you, bright as a sweet. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Rainbow grasshopper
Good to know
Six things about the rainbow grasshopper
Colours that warn
The pattern tells birds that it tastes bad, so it has no need to hide.
It cannot fly
Its wings are tiny stubs. It gets about by walking and hopping.
Eggs wait for rain
The eggs lie in the soil through winter and hatch after the first rains of summer.
Not a fussy eater
It eats many kinds of low desert plants, and does little harm to crops.
A sunbather
On cool mornings it turns side-on to the sun to warm up.
The real thing
Photos of the rainbow grasshopper
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Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
Look low down among sparse grass and small shrubs in late summer. Unlike most grasshoppers it does not leap away at once.
How to help
It needs open, unploughed dry grassland with a mix of wild plants.
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