Is grasshopper a pest or a good insect? He loves these 4 foods!

Grasshoppers are what we often call locusts, and grasshoppers combine food, medicine and nourishment. Many places have the habit of eating grasshoppers. Since grasshoppers have a certain edible value, do grasshoppers belong to pests or beneficial insects in agriculture? What kind of food do you eat?

A brief introduction to the grasshopper

1. Appearance characteristics

Grasshoppers, also known as locusts, grasshoppers, short-horned grasshoppers and grasshoppers, belong to the family Orthoptera, belonging to incomplete metamorphosis, including egg, nymph and adult stages. Young and adult insects are similar, except for the difference between wings; legs are well developed, the hind legs can jump dozens of times longer than the body, the hind wings are translucent, and the body color is green and brown.

2. Distribution

There are more than 10 000 species of grasshoppers in the world and more than 1000 species in China, which are distributed in tropical and temperate grasslands and deserts all over the world, mainly including migratory locusts and soil locusts.

3. The difference between grasshopper and cricket

(1) the grasshopper has a slender body and short antennae.

(2) the grasshopper's ear is not in the forefoot, but between the chest and abdomen.

(3) the female grasshopper has an oviposition tube in the tail, but it is not very prominent.

(4) in most species of grasshoppers, the body of females is larger than that of males.

What kind of food does the grasshopper eat?

Grasshoppers have a large mouth and developed jaws, often appear in the fields and bushes, and have a wide range of food. They like to feed on plant leaves most, which can be divided into the following four categories:

1. Like to eat sweet potato, hollow cabbage, cabbage and other vegetables

2. Corn, wheat, sorghum, millet, cotton, rice, sorghum, barley, beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, tobacco, sugarcane and other crops

3. Reed, barnyardgrass, white grass, Rabdosia angustifolia, shrimp grass, Salicornia mandshurica and some Artemisia plants

4. There are also leaves, tender stems, buds and young fruits of fruit trees, trees and weeds.

Third, is the grasshopper a beneficial insect or a pest?

By understanding the food sources of grasshoppers, they eat grains, fruits, vegetables and other crops, which can cause varying degrees of harm to agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry, so grasshoppers belong to agricultural pests.

According to the historical records of our country, the locusts that caused the most serious locusts to agriculture were mainly migratory locusts, and it was considered that there was the greatest chance or correlation between drought and migratory locusts in the same year, followed by drought in the previous year and drought after waterlogging. Locust disasters, flood and drought disasters often occur one after another, which have been the three major natural disasters that seriously threaten China's agricultural production and affect people's lives, but in recent years, with the extensive use of pesticides, the frequency of locust disasters has decreased.

4. What are the natural enemies of grasshoppers?

Grasshoppers have many natural enemies, including frogs, lizards, birds, spiders, fungi, viruses, nematodes, predatory beetles, parasitic bees, parasitic flies and so on. Ants, step beetles, green green beetles, young wasp gadflies, insectivorous gadflies are all important predatory natural enemies of locusts.

Conclusion: through the understanding of this article, I believe we all know that grasshopper is a pest, although it is a pest, but grasshopper also has a certain dietary value, many farmers also began to breed locusts on the road to prosperity.