Family: Acrididae, Short-horned Grasshoppers view all from this family

Description 1 3/8-2" (35-50 mm). Cinnamon-brown to grayish tan, matching color of dry soil. Hind wings black with broad pale yellow border. Pronotum has a high, narrow middle ridge.

Food Grasses, other herbaceous plants, and sometimes beans.

Sound Very fast purring or beating, then a fluttering sound; made only in flight.

Life Cycle Egg masses, each containing 20-70 eggs, are deposited in soft soil. Nymphs' speckled bodies blend inconspicuously with ground. Usually 1 generation a year.

Habitat Roadsides and dry fields.

Range Throughout North America.

Discussion This locust is less destructive than most other species in the genus. The related Long-winged Locust (D. longipennis), 1 3/8-1 3/4" (35-44 mm), is brownish yellow with brown-spotted fore wings and black hind wings with a narrow yellow border. It is quite destructive, eating plains grasses at moderate elevations from southwestern Kansas to Texas, west to New Mexico, north to Idaho.