Blue-winged Grasshopper

This species occurs in Europe, North Africa and Asia. It was recently rediscovered in the Maltese islands.

Oedipoda caerulescens frequents dry areas with low and open vegetation: dunes, heathlands, grasslands on sand and sunlit limestone rocks. Many stations correspond to land recently used for human activities, such as coal spoil heaps, quarries and pits, the ballast of railway tracks, etc. It is exclusively a terrestrial insect, and its cryptic coloration often matches its substrate. It presses itself to the ground and remains motionless, and jumps only at the very close approach of danger. A remarkable behavior is the "hook" landing which serves to confuse potential attackers. Thus, the grasshopper lands and swings round to face the direction it has come from. The sudden disappearance of the blue hind wings of the adult makes it difficult for predators to shift quickly enough to a different kind of search to relocate the prey. The female lays her eggs in bare, dry soil. In this species, acoustic emissions are virtually nonexistent. The diet consists mainly of grasses.