Grasshopper Season

Grasshopper season hit with a vengeance about 6 weeks ago. They were just EVERYWHERE! Everytime we went to Little Man's baseball games, Muffin Man brought along his bug boxes to collect more of the little critters and bring them home. At one point we had at least 20 or so living in bug boxes on my kitchen counter. We would have had well over 100 but I put a stop to him bringing them home. After a point, I told he had to catch and release. LOL! The ones we kept were fed leafy greens and they seemed to do well.

At the beginning of the season they were so tiny! I had actually never seen grasshoppers so small! A few of them were the size of lady bugs! They are quite cute at that stage. But they GROW! And they get BIG! And they get UGLY! But I must admit they were quite fascinating to watch. When they get really big you can see their mouths working when they eat, and really differentiate between their body parts. Muffin Man really needs to pursue entomology. He just LOVES bugs!

We have since released all the grasshoppers back into the wild but here are a few pictures for you to enjoy.
This first one is of Muffin Man with a smallish grasshopper. Not the smallest we found but still in the cute stage.

 

Here is Little Man with one that is all grown up. Blech.

 

And one last close up of that Giant Critter before he was set free.