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Index of Subjects Presumably it was a female and these were the mature eggs squidged out from the abdomen. In the larger locusts that we used to breed (species of Schistocerca, Locusta) these are indeed like small grains of white rice about 3 millimeters long, so would be a bit smaller in a large grasshopper. The abdomen is extremely extensible, and the female uses it to insert bunches of eggs an inch or two down in, for instance, damp sand. If the sand is warm and moist enough, these hatch and dig out later as miniature grasshoppers, but without wings until the last moult stage. Incidentally, while it is fairly easy to rear these insects in captivity in a home-made cage heated by a light bulb, it is inadvisable to try this as you will become extremely sensitized to them after some exposure. Everyone I know who has reared them has become allergic to their presence via some protein dust that gets out into the air, or else is transferred to the skin by handling the insects. Insects work differently from vertebrates and take in oxygen and lose carbon dioxide (CO2) through a set of small openings at either side of the body, called spiracles, largely by diffusion. The spiracles form the ends of a series of tree-like air tubes called tracheae that branch inside the body, the finest subdivisions of which penetrate the muscles and organs directly: gases get to and from the tissues by direct contact, without going through the blood system as in vertebrates. If the question is how best to put down the damaged grasshopper quickly, it's to take advantage of this system and replace the air with CO2 which will get into the tracheae in milliseconds, anaesthetize the insect in a few 10s of seconds then eventually kill it. Though it's fairly easy to make from a modified fire extinguisher, you probably won't have a handy supply of low pressure CO2. Instead, you could take advantage of a trick pulled by some insect photographers, used to quieten a feisty insect that won't keep still: put it in a pill bottle in the freezer and leave it for 10-20 minutes. If you get the time right, when brought out again the insect will remain partially cold-anaesthetized for a minute or two, long enough to shoot a few pictures before it warms up again. If you carry this on in the freezer for long enough it will not recover (and eventually freeze), so that's your most humane and least yucky method if you don't want to put it out for the birds or squish it. Steve, Halifax Quoting Joyce Norris <whuzzy@ns.sympatico.ca>: > This may sound ridiculous but I will only say I am an animal lover... > > I somehow partially tramped on a large grasshopper and injured part > of its lower abdomen. Stuff that looks like grains of rice has come > out from the injured area. I put him on a plant where he has stayed > the whole afternoon. I haven't the heart to jut tramp on him or > whatever. Any ideas? An ant or an earwig I can kill, for whatever > reason not a large grasshopper > > Thx > Joyce
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Index of Subjects