Egyptian Grasshopper

April 2008: Egyptian Grasshopper found in local garden centre

I received a call from Bernie Stevens who owns St Davids Garden & Nursery saying that he had found a very large grasshopper or locust in his greenhouse. I quickly pulled together a net, collecting tub, camera, tripod and book on Orthoptera and jumped in my car! It really did feel as if I was an insect detective! The creature in question was rather cold, so stayed obligingly still to be photographed and subsequently captured. It was later identified with the help of Darren Mann as being an Egyptian Grasshopper, Anacridium aegyptum. It is a very easy species to recognise, as it is about 4cm long with stripey eyes.

The grasshopper, due to the species origins has been named Pharoah, although this particular specimen probably came from Venice with some recently imported plants. The species is widespread throughout southern Europe and has been imported to the UK previously. There are examples of them being discovered in salad leaves from supermarkets whilst on a plate on the table!

Pharoah, a few days after being captured produced, of all things a beetle larvae from the Ripiphoridae family! The parasitic beetle would have been eaten by Pharoah as an egg and  went on to develop inside the grasshopper's gut. The  larvae then emerged without causing Pharoah any undue worry and is now  hopefully developing into an adult beetle that, unlike the immature stage will be identifiable to species. It is particularly interesting as there are only 450 species in the Ripiphoridae family worldwide and very few of these are orthopteran (grasshopper and cricket) parasites.