Chromacris speciosa
I was walking home one evening, and I saw this beautiful grasshopper resting on a shrub. It was so bright looking, and I had never seen one of these before, so I picked it up and brought it home with me. It was very friendly, it let me pick it up and play with it, and it never attempted to fly away from me.
The Chromacris speciosa is also known in Brazil as “gafanhoto-soldado”, soldier-grasshopper, and it also has the nickname “brasileirinho”, little brazilian boy, because of it’s colors. It has my nation’s colors!
The brasileirinho is in the Romaleida family, and the interesting thing is that they begin life looking very different. When they are nymphs, they are black with bright red stripes, which is also a very interesting combination to look at. The reason why they have the bright red markings when they are little is to keep predators away. Or so I hear :)
I happened to have a plant at home that has the same colors as he does, so I thought this picture looks pretty nice, modesty aside. He must have been pretty happy to blend so well with the background. He stock around for a good while.
Chromacris speciosa by The Bug Lady, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
