Bicoloured Cedarinia **- Cedarinia sp. 3**

Family Acrididae

This page contains pictures and information about the Bicoloured Cedarinia Grasshoppers that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.


Body length female 35mm, male 20mm

This grasshopper is common in Eucalypt forests in Brisbane. Both adult females and males have very tiny wings. The female size is more than double of the male. The female is pale brown in colour. The male is darker in colour and look quite different.

We first found this female grasshopper near Bulimba Creek in Brisbane. We found two of them, one was on the ground and one was one the tree about a meter from ground. They were pale grown in colour, their wings are not developed so we thought they are immature nymphs. We brought one home to see how they develop into adult.


Female

Two days later, we saw the "nymph" laid eggs, as shown in the above picture. We then understood that she was not a nymph but a female adult. This species female is 'wingless' !. When we looked carefully at the close-up picture, we found that she had the very tiny but fully developed wings. We were not sure if the male is winged or wingless.

Adult male body length 20mm

After we learnt that their males are wingless, we found that they are quite common and easily found on the floor of most bushlands in Brisbane. Before, we thought they were the small nymph and did not bother to carefully look at them.

They are usually found resting on plants near ground level. It seems that they do not have preference to a particular type of host plant.

Reference:
1. Grasshopper Country - the Abundant Orthopteroid Insects of Australia, D Rentz, UNSW Press, 1996, p182.
2. A Guide to Australian Grasshoppers and Locusts - DCF Rentz, RC Lewis, YN Su and MS Upton, 2003, p112.