Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada
Clickable Guide
Moths Butterflies Flies Caterpillars Flies Dragonflies Flies Mantids Cockroaches Bees and Wasps Walkingsticks Earwigs Ants Termites Hoppers and Kin Hoppers and Kin Beetles True Bugs Fleas Grasshoppers and Kin Ticks Spiders Scorpions Centipedes Millipedes

Calendar

TaxonomyBrowseInfoImagesLinksBooksData
Photo#485048
Dark grasshopper - Trimerotropis verruculata - female

Dark grasshopper - Trimerotropis verruculata - Female
Buffalo Peaks area, Pike NF, S of Fairplay, Park County, Colorado, USA
July 18, 2010
Size: approx 7 cm
elev 10,400 feet

Images of this individual: tag all
Dark grasshopper - Trimerotropis verruculata - female Dark grasshopper - Trimerotropis verruculata - female

It turns out to be "Crackling Forest Grasshopper -
Trimerotropis [verruculatus] suffusa. It looks like a female in it's last (5th) instar, and would mature to look about like this one:
.

T. [cyaneipennis] fratercula is very closely related (I think they sometimes hybridize), but it is usually lighter in color (though yours is pretty light for T. suffusa); I think the edges of the top of the pronotum usually aren't as sharply defined; and, it would not likely turn up much above 7000 ft (perhaps exceptionally 8000). It is usually found in the "Upper Sonoran", and if associated with trees, they are usually Juniper, PiƱon, or occasionally Ponderosa Pine. It likes dry rocky slopes in the "foothills", and is abundant in places like the slopes around Colorado Springs, Salida, and Trinidad, and is spotty all along the base of the Front Range (becoming rare north of about Castle Rock). It is also on exposed limestone bluffs with Limber Pine and Juniper out in the Pawnee Buttes area in Weld and Logan Counties on the Plains. If it's in Park County, it would only be at the lowest elevations in the south end of the county.

T. suffusa is common throughout the mountains, usually higher up, and is in a wide variety of open dryish sunny places, but most often near or under trees, sometimes flat, sometimes sloping or on hilltops. It is has a proclivity for colonizing mountain camp grounds and abandoned gravel forest roads. It becomes rare below about 7000 ft. in the south and 6000 ft in the north of Colorado.

The other species I was considering is T. cincta, but I don't think that's what you've got here.

Moved from Trimerotropini.

 
Thank you so much for all of
Thank you so much for all of your help. I don't think I would have ever figured it out. Your helps makes them even more interesting! Thanks again.

probably a species of Trimerotropis
[that or perhaps Circotettix] - a last instar nymph. I can probably figure out the species with a bit more time. What was the habitat like? That could help.

Moved from ID Request.

 
Do you think this could be a
Do you think this could be a Pine Bluffs Grasshopper (Trimerotropis fratercula)? The location seems consistent. I don't know what color the wings were. Thanks.

 
Thanks for your help. It was
Thanks for your help. It was in a clearing in an Aspen forest, there was some nearby pasture - meadow, and occasional pine trees nearby, mid summer.

Comment viewing options
Select your preferred way to display the comments and click 'Save settings' to activate your changes.