Summer Lubber

Seeming to burst forth in summer, Southeastern lubber grasshoppers (Romalea microptera) fill fields, marshes, roadsides and, too often, gardens. They are big-two and a half to three inches-and garishly clad in yellow, black and red-a warning to predators to stay away. Lubbers don't need to fly or jump. Instead, they ooze a foul-smelling secretion rendering them inedible to kestrels, foxes and predators of other grasshoppers.

Lubbers prey on nearly any growing plant, but they particularly like amaryllis, and they munch huge chunks of many other prized garden plants as well.

Aesop's fable of the grasshopper and the ants was only partly right. In the tale, the carefree grasshopper spent the summer eating and singing among the weeds while the hard-working ants coordinated their efforts to lay away food for the coming winter. Those insect activities were easily observable. Not so easily seen, but now understood, is the way lubbers and other grasshoppers ensure their survival. Toward the end of summer, grasshoppers have a great burst of reproduction.

Eggs lie dormant through our mild winters, permitting nymphs to develop in the spring. Primitive insects like grasshoppers undergo incomplete metamorphosis, distinguishing them from the complete metamorphosis of other insects.