The tibia fits into a groove under the larger femur, so the lower part of the leg can be totally hidden from view by the upper. If you look closely at the near hind leg, you can see the top of the tibia below the "knee", and the tarsi (basically the "foot") sticking out at the base. The legs on this one are all there and whole.

I found this summer. I also don't know how rare they are, but it is really neat to find one.

Paging through this Guide to Canadian Grasshoppers, there is a photo of a partly-pink nymph, and this description:

The two-striped grasshopper can be recognized by the stripes on the back. The adult is usually green with yellow highlights, but the immatures can be orange, yellow, green, brown or even magenta.

The author does not give the common name in that document, a web search shows twostriped grasshopper = Melanoplus bivittatus (Say). This page shows details of the nymphs, but not the pink form. Another page showing nymphs, and Orthoptera of the Northern Great Plains page for M. bivittatus, saying, Nymphs:
*Not as highly mottled as M. differentialis.
* Outer face of hind femur with a complete black band on upper half.
* Outer face with black dots below lower carnula

One other reference I saw on the Internet mentions a magenta forms of another Melanoplus species:

Spur-throated grasshoppers of the Canadian Prairies and Northern Great Plains--having trouble reading that PDF, but the google html version mentions:

"A rare magenta M. sanguinipes, which is normally gray. I have seen and photographed the magenta characteristic in this species, and also in M. bivitattus, M. packardii and C. pellucida" (=Camnula pellucida).

Nymphs of C. pellucida

So my guess is Melanoplus, possibly M. bivittatus. Somebody skilled in orthoptera might be able to look at the photos here and compare with the photos of nymphs on the Internet.

Patrick Coin
Durham, North Carolina

Melanoplus nymphs have essentially no trace of a pronotal ridge (along the top of the thorax). They also tend to have a broad, black, arc across the side of the thorax. This is something in the band-winged grasshopper subfamily. It looks to be fully pigmented as well. Any pink rocks in the area?:-)

I keep finding more really cool stuff as I hunt around in BugGuide. It would be very interesting to see if these grew up to be pink adults! The two pictures are different species and probably different genera. Compare the fastigum (top of the head between / in front of the eyes), and the ridge down the middle of the pronotum. These are the most obvious differences, but there are others. The color just happens to be similar. I'll come back to these and suggest genera after I look at them some more, but it is unlikely they will be identified to species. They are both early instars, which look very different from adults, but very similar among related species. They are definitely both band-wings.

Do grasshopper nymphs have different coloration right after eclosing like beetles and cockroaches?