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Photo#234287
Marsh Meadow Grasshopper - Chorthippus curtipennis - female

Marsh Meadow Grasshopper - Chorthippus curtipennis - Female
Cass Park, Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York, USA
October 11, 2008
Size: 20 mm
Is this another, much lighter, Chorthippus curtipennis? I found it across the park from 233913(1).

Meadow Grasshopper, Mark II
Yes, a lighter individual. They come in all sorts of nice shades and, at least in my immediate area, three basic patterns: tan (on top)/green (sides), tan/brown, and a tan/brown overlayed with smutty facial markings and elaborate dark striping ('Picasso-patterned'). Yours is a tan/brown.

It's also fairly common here to find half-pinks--tan/greens with the tan overlayed by a bright pink or fuschia shade--and, more rarely, full pinks--tan/browns with the pink overlaying both the tan and brown to varying degrees. This year, I found two full pinks, both from the same roadside within a few meters of each other and both of which are now in my mixed grasshopper terrarium to finish living out their lives. (We've already had frosts.) The two of them are quite the sight smoozing alongside their more normally coloured peers when a bunch of them all feed together on a fresh batch of goodies or lie together basking in the afternoon sunshine or under the lights.

The main colour trends I noticed this year was that there were a lot of darker than usual tan/browns and that the males everywhere seemed to have longer, darker antennae than ever before. Tan/browns and Picassos also outnumbered the tan/greens--in some years, this ratio is reversed and the tan/greens prodominate.

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