This is one serious grasshopper!\u00a0It\u2019s hard to ignore a grasshopper that\u2019s large enough to trip over and too large to fly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Big grasshopper?\u00a0 Big story.\u00a0Put your feet up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lubber grasshoppers are in the family Romaleidae, a family that\u2019s having a taxonomic \u201cPardon our Dust<\/em>\u201d moment because some experts suspect that a few of the genera now included may not belong there.\u00a0One reputable source lists only four species north of the Rio Grande, but Bugguide.net includes nine species in seven genera.\u00a0Even the star of today\u2019s show can be found under two scientific names –\u00a0Romalea<\/em>\u00a0microptera<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Romalea guttata<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Quick Etymological Detour: Romaleidae comes from a New Latin word that\u2019s based on a Greek word that means, appropriately, \u201cstrong of body.\u201d\u00a0The word \u201clubber\u201d (which rhymes with \u201cblubber\u201d) has negative connotations in a variety of languages \u2013 \u201clazy or clumsy (Old English), \u201cplump and lazy\u201d (Swedish), \u201cclumsy and stupid\u201d (other Scandinavians), \u201cswindler and parasite\u201d (Old French), and \u201cbumpkin.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Microptera\u00a0<\/em>means \u201cmicro wing\u201d and\u00a0guttata<\/em>\u00a0means \u201cspotted.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n [\u201cLubber\u201d – a deeper dive: According to\u00a0https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/word\/lubber<\/a>, \u201c\u2019Since 16c. mainly a sailors’ word for those inept or inexperienced at sea (as in \u2018landlubber,\u2019 but earliest attested use is of lazy monks (abbey-lubber). Compare also provincial English lubberwort, name of the mythical herb that produces laziness (1540s), Lubberland \u2018imaginary land of plenty without work\u2019 (1590s)<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0Lubber is also a verb – “to sail clumsily; to loaf about,” 1520s, from lubber(n.)<\/em>.\u201d]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, there are some pretty spiffy North American lubber grasshoppers, not all of which are super-sized and not all of which are flightless, including the aptly-named Dragon lubber<\/a>, the Robust lubber<\/a>, and the awesome Horse lubber<\/a>\u00a0and https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/845442<\/a>\u00a0(Arizona Road Trip!).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n An eye-catching insect like this is bound to have lots of common names. Along with Eastern lubber grasshopper, it answers to Florida lubber, Southern lubber, Texas grasshopper, graveyard grasshopper, soldier boys, Georgia thumper, and devil\u2019s horse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s the only lubber in the East, and one author calls it an insect of the deep, deep South.\u00a0Look for it in the Southeastern US from East Texas around the Gulf Coast to Florida, north to North Carolina, and west to Tennessee and Missouri.\u00a0Because they\u2019re flightless, they aren\u2019t spread evenly within that range.\u00a0Adults prefer dryer habitats in pine woods and weedy fields, and nymphs like swamps, marshes, wet pastures, and ditches.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Males grow to 2 \u00bd inches and females to 3+ inches<\/a>.\u00a0Part of\u00a0bugguide.net<\/a>\u2019s description reads \u201cDistinguished by huge size and vivid yellow\/red\/black coloration, with hind wings red bordered black.<\/em>\u201d There\u2019s a lot of variation in color https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/585300<\/a>, and\u00a0https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/1330153\/bgimage<\/a>, and https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/1264792\/bgimage<\/a>, and some color schemes get established regionally (the black morph<\/a> is more common around the Gulf Coast).\u00a0Newly hatched\u00a0https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/1954601\/bgimage<\/a>, and newly-molted<\/a>\u00a0lubber nymphs are red, but they darken quickly<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s only one generation per year.\u00a0Guarded by a male, the female lays eggs in summer, depositing about three pods, each containing 30 to 50 eggs, an inch or two underground in easily-excavated soil (she digs a hole with the tip of her abdomen).\u00a0Each pod is plugged with a foamy cap that allows the nymphs to escape when they hatch.\u00a0The eggs overwinter and the nymphs emerge in late winter as air and soil warm.\u00a0Dramatic migrations of lubbers-on-the-hoof have been reported – some associated with overcrowded nymphs seeking food, and others associated with adults seeking romance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sources are divided about whether lubbers are a big agricultural pest or not.\u00a0They feed on about 100 different herbaceous and woody plants in 38 plant families, and unfortunately, their menu includes some thick-leaved ornamentals like amaryllis, a few fruit trees (including citrus), and some vegetable crops (they like peas, beans, kale, and cabbage but not eggplant, tomato, pepper celery, or sweet corn).\u00a0There\u2019s evidence that they can locate food plants by detecting their odors on the wind.\u00a0Though flightless, lubbers are good climbers; their usual MO is to chew holes in leaves and move on, but the nymphs are gregarious, and a dedicated gang of nymphs can defoliate a branch<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nymphs also eat emergent aquatic vegetation in ditches, including some unwanted weeds, before they move into farm fields, and adults eat less than you\u2019d think an insect of that size would eat.\u00a0On the plus side, an ingredient in a lubber\u2019s saliva stimulates plant growth and can make a plant that\u2019s rebounding from grasshopper foraging bushier and more desirable to four-legged-grazers (\u201ccompensatory plant growth<\/em>\u201d).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not much preys on Eastern lubbers.\u00a0Their bright (aposematic\/warning) colors signal to predators that eating them would be a bad idea, and when something does try to make a meal of them, they launch a three-pronged attack \u2013 structural, behavioral, and chemical.\u00a0Seems like overkill, but remember, these guys are heavy and slow and flightless, and they don\u2019t even hop well.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n An alarmed lubber first flares its wings<\/a>, a strategy that\u2019s especially effective with birds. If that doesn\u2019t work, it releases toxins.\u00a0Lubbers sequester some poisonous chemicals from the leaves they eat, and they synthesize others, and these chemicals come out of the spiracles (breathing tubes) of the thorax, first (with a hiss) as a noxious spray that can carry as far as 6 inches, and then as a foam that bubbles out (scroll down\u00a0https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/jipm\/article\/9\/1\/10\/4938808<\/a>).\u00a0Like other grasshoppers, it may also vomit \u201ctobacco juice\u201d \u2013 a fluid that\u2019s made of recently eaten plant material and that may be repellent in itself (especially to ants) if the grasshopper has been dining on toxic plants.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The array of plants that lubbers eat allows them to stockpile different chemicals at different times, and their predators can\u2019t get acclimated to the poisons because the ingredients are always changing.\u00a0The chemicals deter invertebrates and vertebrates alike – frogs, lizards and most birds vomit strenuously and may even die after eating one, and even opossums can\u2019t stomach them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bubbly broth is stored in a gland within the thorax.\u00a0In an article called \u201cLarge size as an antipredator defense,\u201d researchers Whitman and Vincent write that \u201cAs such, this unique defense gland serves as a toxic waste dump for potentially harmful, plant secondary compounds. When ejected, these low-weight substances quickly volatize, enveloping the grasshopper in a noxious chemical cloud, deterrent to many vertebrate predators,<\/em>\u201d and they add that \u201cIt appears that lubbers have evolved to occupy a relatively predator-free ecological space: they are too large to be attacked by most invertebrate predators and too toxic for most vertebrate predators<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n They have legs that are heavily armed with spines that are sharp enough to pierce human skin, and the chitonous plates that make up their exoskeletons are extra-tough \u2013 these guys are armored tanks. They are harmless to humans, but they have strong jaws, and one\u00a0bugguide.net<\/a>\u00a0correspondent reported being nipped smartly by a nymph that was scaling his leg.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fun Facts about Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is really a spectacular insect, and lots of people like taking pictures of it (and it poses so nicely!). Here are some gratuitous pictures from\u00a0bugguide.net<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/408028\/bgimage<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/101967<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/1371814\/bgimage<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/901444\/bgimage<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/682611\/bgimage<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/100841\/bgimage<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/bugguide.net\/node\/view\/81814\/bgimage<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Dark_Lubber_Grasshopper\"](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2025\/03\/lubber-grasshopper-MLV22-2-300x195.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n