Jul 25, 2011: I didn't pay too much attention to the case of grasshopper eating a fly. AFAK, even some herbivorous mammals can eat snails or chickens or mice, too — if it gets into mouth together with the grass. So, a couple of days later I brought more grass and a new caterpillar into the insectary. I wanted to try to raise the caterpillar so that to see what butterfly it will turn into.

When I put the grass with the caterpillar into the insectary, one of the grasshoppers became alert. She started to run and move her antennas, as if she was trying to find the source of a smell. I was observing her, still thinking that she is looking for some tasty grass. Suddenly, she found the caterpillar, made a quick jerk, grasped the caterpillar and… yes, she started eating. Here, you can see on photo: between her head and front legs something not so green. It's a caterpillar, and she is eating it.

She didn't accidentally grasp it nor did she confuse it with a leaf. She felt the smell of meat, and she found and catched it. Now, at last, I understood how all other insects and spiders disappeared.

After that, I stopped trying to put other insects into the insectary. We had a good friendship with another spider living freely near my computer, and the grasshoppers (mostly females) owned the insectary until autumn. Sometimes I put there a male grasshoppers, they were amazingly noisy but never lived longer than a couple of days.

Once I accidentally put a fresh corpse of a wasp on top of the insectary. I was surprised once again: the grasshopper made a small hole in the net, pulled the wasp inside and ate it! Then I made an experiment: I put a live wasp inside the insectary to see if the grasshopper will catch it. I found that the grasshopper is not so strong as a spider. At first, the grasshopper tried to attack the wasp, but the wasp struck back, and after 3 or 4 attempts the grasshopper left it alone.

By the way, entomologists (unlike poets) knew the truth all the time: Tettigonia viridissima [this species is rather close to Tettigonia cantans, which is shown on the photo] is carnivorous… Its diet is mostly composed of flies, caterpillars and larvae. So, in fact, these grasshoppers should be our friends in our garden. Well, but they make half-a-centimeter holes in our tomatoes and peppers, though there are quite enough flies and caterpillars in the garden! Obviously, entomologists made their descriptions after observing grasshoppers in wildlife, not in a garden full of tasty fruits.carnivorous-grasshoppers

species Tettigonia cantans