The Grasshopper’s Run: They’ve got to be every kid’s favourite insect!

They’ve got to be every kid’s favourite insect, and even now, I can’t resist nudging one when I see it. Boing! Zing! And it’s off like a rubberband stretched to the max and suddenly released. Grasshoppers, katydids and crickets are nature’s long-distance leapers and it’s exhilarating to walk through a grassy meadow and watch these elongated slim creatures leap madly all around you.

And yes, they have other talents: they’re musicians par excellence; gents “stridulate” (which is what you do when you make a violin screech) to the ladies, using those prodigious thighs or tough wing cases, which are serrated and produce music when rubbed against one another. It can drive you nuts or can soothe you to sleep, depending on your taste in friction music, but heck, lady grasshoppers swoon, so why should they care how you feel?

Another, more sinister “talent” they have is the amount they can eat. When environmental conditions are right, some grasshoppers may take on the state of being “locusts” — by breeding ballistically until they number gazillions, and we all know what locusts can do! Each one can consume its own body weight in food every day. So they’ll strip a country’s standing crops in half an hour and move on to the next in vast black clouds. A single square mile may contain locusts weighing in at 300 tonnes and a large swarm can darken an area of 300 square miles — they do things on a macro scale. In India, the desert locust is the one (out of three species) to be feared.

Ah, but they’re high-protein themselves and birds, lizards and frogs know that only too well. Rosy starlings, for instance, time their own fast-breeder, ever-hungry broods with the massing of locusts so that some sanity is maintained. And crispy-fried grasshoppers are a delicacy in several South-east Asian cuisines.

Naturally, they use those prodigious leaps to get away from those with such evil appetites. And their thunder thighs enable them to do so. A thin sheath like “flexor” muscle running under the thigh positions the leg correctly and enables the claws to dig in and grip when contracted. A massive “extensor” muscle which consists of most of the thigh provides the power for the leap. Both are connected to bones at either end by tendons. At the outer end of the joint, between the thigh and the shin, is a thick mass of elastic cuticle. Before leaping, the grasshopper stops feeding and singing and focuses: first, the “flexor” muscle contracts and positions the leg correctly. Then, slowly, the massive “extensor” muscle contracts, like a bowstring being drawn. The elastic cuticle bulges as it stores energy, just like a bow. Then the hair-trigger flexors relax suddenly and then, zing, the insect catapults off and you look around bemusedly for it, so you can tickle it again! But beware: they can also kick with those massive thighs, sending you head over heels in the grass. They have wings too, though frankly, they are not the most graceful of flyers.

Grasshoppers are usually brown or green — or they may be violently hued to show they’re poisonous, while katydids often beautifully disguise themselves as leaves. Crickets seem to prefer the indoors and are dull and drab.

Babies, hatched from eggs, are tiny delicate replicas of their parents. There are some 20,000 species of these blithe singing leapers in the world, so when you’re banished to the long-on boundary, there’s sure to be one around to tickle your fancy!

E-mail author: ranjitlal55@gmail.com