Grasshoppers are plant-eaters, with a few species at times becoming serious pests of cereals, vegetables and pasture. The study of grasshopper species is called acridology. Grasshoppers belong to the suborder Caelifera. They are almost exclusively herbivorous and are probably the oldest living group of chewing herbivory insects.
About Grasshopper in brief
Grasshoppers are plant-eaters, with a few species at times becoming serious pests of cereals, vegetables and pasture. They protect themselves from predators by camouflage; when detected, many species attempt to startle the predator with a brilliantly-coloured wing-flash. They feature in art, symbolism and literature. The study of grasshopper species is called acridology. Grasshoppers belong to the suborder Caelifera. They are almost exclusively herbivorous and are probably the oldest living group of chewing herbivory insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. The main families in this are the Acrididae with a worldwide and the Romaleidae, Lentulidae and Tridactylidae are found chiefly in the New World. The most nocturnal insects are the Pauliniids, which can swim on water, and the Lentulids, who are wingless and are found on the ground and in the air. The grasshoppers have had a long relationship with humans, and are used as food in countries such as Mexico and Indonesia. They may be placed in the infraorder Acrididea and have been referred-to as \”short-horned grass Hoppers\” in older texts to distinguish them from the also-obsolete term \”long-horning grasshooppers\” with their much longer antennae. The phylogeny of the Caelifiera, based on mitochondrial ribosomal RNA of thirty-two taxa in six out of seven superfamilies, is shown as a cladogram.
The Ensifera and all the superfam families of grassHoppers except Pamphagoidea appear to be monophyletic. Tridactsyloidea Eumastacidae Proscopiidae Pneumoridae Pyrgomorphidae Acridaceae + Pamphagidae are the most diverse superfamily with around 8,000 species, mainly in temperate zones, wet forests and wet forests. The first modern families such as the Eumasts and Tetrigidae appeared in the Cretaceous, though some insects that might belong to last two of these groups are found in the early Jurassic. Many undescribed species probably exist, especially in tropical zones, but most of them are known from temperate regions. The species of Grasshopper are known as locusts under certain environmental conditions. At high population densities and under certain conditions, some grasshopping species can change color and behavior and form swarms. They can have devastating effects and cause famine, and even in smaller numbers, the insects can be serious pests. In evolutionary terms, the split between the C Gaelifera is no more recent than the Permo-Triassic boundary; the earliest insects that are certainly Caelifiedans are in the extinct families Locustopseidae and Locustavidae from the earlyTriassic, roughly 250 million year ago.
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This page is based on the article Grasshopper published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 02, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
