Are Grasshoppers (Locusts) Pests or Beneficial Insects? These Are the 4 Types of Food They Like Best

Grasshoppers, which is what we commonly call locusts, combine food value, medicinal value and nourishing properties in one, and many places have the custom of eating grasshoppers. Since grasshoppers have a certain food value, are grasshoppers in agriculture pests or beneficial insects? What food do they mainly eat?

I. A brief introduction to grasshoppers

1. Physical characteristics

The grasshopper, also called locust, grasshopper, short-horned grasshopper or grasshopper, is the collective name for insects of the family Acrididae in the order Orthoptera. It is an insect with incomplete metamorphosis, including three stages: egg, nymph and adult. The nymph resembles the adult, differing only in whether wings are present. Its legs are well developed, and with its hind legs it can jump a distance dozens of times longer than its body. The hind wings are semi-transparent, and the body color is green or brown.

2. Distribution

There are more than 10,000 species of grasshoppers worldwide, and more than 1,000 species in China. They are distributed in tropical and temperate grassland and desert regions around the world, mainly including migratory locusts and soil locusts.

3. Differences between grasshoppers and crickets

(1) The grasshopper has a slender body and short antennae;

(2) The grasshopper's ears are not on its front legs, but between its thorax and abdomen.

(3) The female grasshopper has an ovipositor at the tail end, though it is not very prominent.

(4) In most species of grasshoppers, the female's body is larger than the male's.

II. What food do grasshoppers eat?

Grasshoppers have a large mouth and well-developed mandibles, often appearing in fields and among grass. They have a wide food range and like best to feed on plant leaves. Specifically, there are the following 4 categories:

1. They like to eat vegetables such as sweet potato, water spinach and Chinese cabbage;

2. Crops such as corn, wheat, sorghum, millet, cotton, rice, sorghum, barley, beans, potato, sweet potato, tobacco and sugarcane;

3. Reed, barnyard grass, cogongrass, dog's tooth grass, sea blite and some Artemisia plants;

4. Also the leaves, tender stems, flower buds and tender fruits of fruit trees, forest trees and weeds.

III. Are grasshoppers beneficial insects or pests?

By understanding the food sources of grasshoppers, they specifically eat crops such as grains, fruits and vegetables, and can cause varying degrees of harm to agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry. Therefore, grasshoppers are agricultural pests.

According to historical records in China, the locust that caused the most serious damage to agriculture was mainly the migratory locust, and it is believed that the probability or correlation of drought occurring in the same year as migratory locusts is the greatest, followed by drought in the previous year and flooding followed by drought, with grasshoppers appearing in swarms. Locust disasters and flood and drought disasters often rose and fell one after another, occurring alternately, and have always been three major natural disasters that seriously threatened agricultural production and affected people's lives in China. However, in recent years, the massive use of pesticides has reduced the frequency of locust outbreaks.

IV. What are the natural enemies of grasshoppers?

Grasshoppers have many natural enemies, including frogs, lizards, birds, spiders, fungi, viruses, nematodes, predatory beetles, parasitic wasps, parasitic flies and so on. Ants, ground beetles, blister beetles, bee flies and robber flies are all important predatory natural enemy insects of locusts.

Conclusion: Through this article, I believe everyone now knows that grasshoppers are pests. Although they are pests, grasshoppers also have a certain value in dietary therapy, and many breeders have also begun to raise locusts and embark on the path to prosperity.