Chorthippus parallelus (Zetterstedt, 1821)

Meadow Grasshopper

Taxonomy: 

  • Orthoptera›Caelifera›Acridoidea›Acrididae›Gomphocerinae›Chorthippus parallelus

Status: 

UK

Distribution

Recordings

  • The typical sound of the Meadow Grasshopper recorded with a bat detector.
  • A cold Meadow Grasshopper stridulates slowly, at about half normal speed. Recorded with a bat detector.
  • Courtship song, starting with mounting song.
  • Calling song. Five verses.

Colours show the year of the last record -

  up to 1987   1988-97   1998 up to present

Only Recording Scheme datasets are included. Other datasets on the Gateway may hold additional information.

Open the NBN Atlas interactive map in a new window.

Description: 

Green-coloured but often with brown wings and sometimes entirely brown coloured. Pronotal side-keels only very slightly incurved. Some adult females are a vivid pinkish purple.

Size: 

10-23 mm

Wings: 

Males are long-winged, while females are usually short-winged, but a fully winged form occurs (f. explicatus).

Stridulation: 

Buzzing with a rapid irregular pulse, repeated at varying intervals; similar to Heath Grasshopper but longer and quieter, lasting 3-5 seconds.

Food: 

Herbivorous, feeding mainly on grasses.

Habitat: 

Coarse grasses in a wide range of habitats such as sand dunes, saltmarshes, woodland rides, roadside verges, waste ground, valley wetlands and wet grassy moorland. The eggs are laid just below the soil surface.

Phenology: 

Long season with nymphs hatching in April. Adults appear by June and remain abundant through to September, some may survive into November.