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How to identify it
- Adults are green, medium-sized spur-throated grasshoppers, with white and black areas on the sides of the pronotum.[1][2]
- A pale line starts on the back of the head and continues down the middle of the top of the pronotum.[1]
- The hind femora are green with cream and dark chevrons and a ring near the knee, which the ARS fact sheet describes as pink and the Nebraska guide as orange to red. The front and middle femora are pink and green.[1][2]
- The hind tibiae are light blue; in females the tips are often light green.[1][2]
- Males' wings reach the end of the abdomen, while females' fall just short. The hind wings are clear.[1][2]
- Nebraska specimens measured 18 to 24 mm for males and 20 to 31 mm for females. Two subspecies occur there: one mostly in the western half of the state with distinct white lines on the hind femur and larger white areas on the pronotum, and one most common in the east with weaker white markings.[2]
- Nymphs are green with many dark spots and usually a cream line down the middle of the back; their antennae are dark with cream-colored rings.[1]
Look-alikes
| Look-alike | How to tell them apart |
|---|---|
| Cudweed grasshopper (Hypochlora alba) | Cudweed grasshopper nymphs, also green spur-throated grasshoppers that turn up in rangeland samples, are pale green with green antennae; snakeweed grasshopper nymphs are medium green with black antennae ringed in pale bands.[1] |
Where it lives
It has a wide range in North America but a patchy distribution, because it lives only where its host plants grow; it is less common in the East than in the West. In Nebraska it has been recorded from much of the state, especially in grasslands with snakeweeds.[1][2]
Biology and life cycle
All of its host plants are forbs, mostly in the composite family. Common hosts include broom and threadleaf snakeweed, Missouri goldenrod, western ragweed, Douglas and gray rabbitbrush and burroweed, and at least 34 forbs have been recorded in its diet. In preference tests it chose snakeweeds over rabbitbrush and burroweed.[1][2]
It also takes trace amounts of grasses, flower petals, pollen, fungi and other arthropods.[1]
It spends most of its life on its host plant, roosting in the shrub through much of the day and feeding in short bouts of less than three minutes on leaf edges, stem tissue and flower buds.[1]
Hatching comes two to three weeks after that of the bigheaded grasshopper: in mid-June in eastern Wyoming and about six weeks earlier in New Mexico.[1]
Nymphs take about 55 days and five stages to mature, 12 to 15 days longer than ground-dwelling range grasshoppers, apparently because perching in the shrub keeps them cooler.[1]
In Nebraska, nymphs appear in spring and adults are most common from mid-July to September.[2]
In northern New Mexico, mating and egg-laying run from late June into early September. Females lay at the base of the host plant, in bare ground or a clump of short grass, about 1 inch deep, in a tough-walled pod about 1/2 inch long that holds ten tan eggs.[1]
It has one generation a year and appears to overwinter as an embryo in the egg, 1 inch down in the soil.[1]
Host quality matters: in the laboratory, females fed only broom snakeweed laid about six eggs each, while those fed threadleaf snakeweed laid 28.[1]
It can disperse over long distances; in Colorado it lives up to about 7,600 feet, but strays have turned up in the mountains as high as 11,500 feet.[1]
Researchers have found that it consists of two distinct genetic lineages, each tied to particular host plants.[2]
Damage and signs
- The plants it eats have little or no forage value for livestock and compete heavily for soil moisture, holding back better forage plants. Some of its preferred hosts, the snakeweeds, are poisonous, and cattle, horses, sheep and goats that eat enough spring shoots and seedlings can become ill, with pregnant animals aborting.[1]
- In New Mexico its feeding killed many threadleaf snakeweed seedlings and one-year-old plants, and at high densities it eats all the leaves and much of the outer stem tissue of older plants, contributing to their early death. The ARS fact sheet reports a New Mexico study of whether it could serve as a biological control agent against broom snakeweed.[1][2]
Health risk
It feeds on range forbs and shrubs; the ARS fact sheet and the Nebraska guide treat it as a beneficial species and describe no risk to people.[1][2]
Control
Prevention
Leave it alone. The ARS fact sheet calls it a beneficial insect, and the Nebraska guide considers it beneficial, because it feeds on weedy forbs and especially on snakeweeds that are toxic to cattle.[1][2]
Common questions
- Is the snakeweed grasshopper a pest?
- No. It is considered beneficial, because it feeds on rangeland weeds of little forage value, especially snakeweeds, which are poisonous to livestock, and its feeding can kill snakeweed plants.[1][2]
- What does the snakeweed grasshopper eat?
- Forbs, mostly in the composite family: snakeweeds above all, plus rabbitbrush, burroweed, Missouri goldenrod, western ragweed and others, with only traces of grass.[1][2]
- How do I recognize a snakeweed grasshopper?
- Look for a green grasshopper with light blue hind tibiae, a pink, orange or red ring near each hind knee, cream and dark chevrons on the hind femur and a pale line down the top of the head and pronotum.[1][2]
Sources
- USDA Agricultural Research Service, Northern Plains Agricultural Research Laboratory, “Snakeweed Grasshopper, Hesperotettix viridis (Thomas): species fact sheet, Grasshoppers: Their Biology, Identification and Management.” www.ars.usda.gov/plains-area/sidney-mt/northern-plains-agricultural-research-laboratory/pest-management-research/pmru-docs/grasshoppers-their-biology-identification-and-management/id-tools-apps/fact-sheets/melanoplinae-subfamily/fs-snakeweed/ (accessed 2026-11-08)
- University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension, “The Grasshoppers (Orthoptera: Acrididae and Romaleidae) of Nebraska, EB3 (M. L. Brust, W. W. Hoback and R. J. Wright).” extensionpubs.unl.edu/publication/eb3/2009/pdf/view/eb3-2009.pdf (accessed 2026-11-08)
- iNaturalist, “Hesperotettix viridis taxon page (order and family).” www.inaturalist.org/taxa/155244 (accessed 2026-11-08)