5 facts you need to know about grasshoppers in Las Vegas

After an unseasonably wet winter and spring, pallid-winged grasshoppers have infested the valley as they migrate as far north as central Nevada from Laughlin and northern Arizona, agriculture officials said last week.

Since the insects will be sticking around for a few weeks, here are five facts about grasshoppers you can use to impress your family and friends:

1. Grasshoppers can leap really far, relative to its size: Grasshoppers can jump about 20 times their body length (½ inch to 5 inches) horizontally and 10 times its body length vertically.

2. Grasshoppers’ ears are on their stomachs: Grasshoppers’ eardrums are located beneath their wings on their abdomens.

3. Grasshoppers have five eyes: Grasshoppers have a large eye on either side of their head, each with thousands of lenses, allowing them to see in all directions. Grasshoppers also have three smaller eyes, one at the base of each antenna and one between the two antennae.

4. Grasshoppers are old, really old: Primitive grasshoppers appear in fossils from the Carboniferous Period, more than 300 million years ago.

5. Grasshoppers’ “music” isn’t melodic: Grasshoppers can hear and detect changes in intensity and rhythm of sounds, but they are unable to hear differences in pitch. Difference species of grasshoppers have distinct rhythms to the noise they make, allowing males and females to find partners from their own species.

Facts from www.facts.net/grasshopper.

Contact Lukas Eggen at leggen@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0261. Follow @LukasEggen on Twitter.