Mottled Sand Grasshopper

The mottled sand grasshopper is found in northern and western United States and southern Canada. Their optimal habitat is in loose, sandy soil. They are especially common along edges of wheat fields. They are most commonly seen in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Michigan.

The mottled sand grasshopper is herbivorous, eating 19 to 28 different species of plants consisting of grasses, sedges, and forbs. "Blue grama, needle-and-thread grass, western wheatgrass, sand dropseed, witchgrass, and threadleaf" are the main grasses and sedges eaten by the mottled sand grasshopper. Other, less favored grasses and sedges include "sand bluestem, little bluestem, prairie sandreed, buffalograss, hairy grama, junegrass, sun sedge and baltic rush". Forbs eaten include "kochia, Missouri milkvetch, sand sagebrush, western sticktight, sunflower, redroot pigweed, bracted spiderwort, rusty lupine, western ragweed". They are geophilous, meaning they live and forage on the ground. They may climb up stalks of grass to cut off a piece to eat, but they mostly forage on ground debris. The front tarsi are used to hold the grass while the grasshopper lies horizontally.