by Jason Hernandez

Created on: March 16, 2009

Grasshoppers, locusts, katydids, and crickets together form the order Orthoptera, and are unique in that the Torah - Jewish sacred law - lists them as the only kosher insects (Leviticus 11:22). Thus, when John the Baptist ate locusts and honey in the desert, he was really not being all that unusual for his times. It is only in the West that people have lately developed an aversion to eating insects. Crickets and katydids are easy to separate out by their habits and forms, but the grasshopper and locust are more difficult. The locust looks much like a very large grasshopper. What is the real difference?

Within the Orthoptera, there are many families. We are here concerned with the Acrididae, or "short-horned" grasshoppers - the ones popularly referred to by the name grasshopper. Within the Acrididae are four subfamilies: Romaleinae, Cyrtacanthacridinae, Acridinae, and Oedipodinae. Romaleinae are the very large "lubber" grasshoppers, which can sometimes be called locusts, but they are not the true swarming locusts. The true swarming locusts are the Cyrtacatnthacridinae, or "spur-throated" grasshoppers. So in fact the locusts are but particular kinds of grasshoppers, the ones that produce great, destructive swarms on the land. When environmental conditions are particularly favorable, the populations of "spur-throated" grasshoppers builds up into the millions; the insects then gather into a swarm and migrate in search of food. It is then they are referred to as locusts. Because there are so many, they strip the land bare of vegetation, and are forced to move on. Eventually, the numbers dwindle, and they revert back to dispersed, sedentary life and are no longer noticed as locusts.

The other two families, the Acridinae or "slant-faced" grasshoppers, and the Oedipodinae or "band-winged" grasshoppers, do not form great swarms and thus are never called locusts. However, they, too, can be agricultural pests, as for example the Carolina grasshopper.

On occasion, other Orthoptera will form swarms and thus become known as locusts; for example, the "locust" swarm which afflicted early Mormon settlers in Utah was in fact a species of Decticine katydids known today as the "Mormon cricket." As a general rule, however, the term locust should be reserved for swarms of "spur-throated" grasshoppers of the subfamily Cyrtacanthacridinae. The difference between grasshoppers and locusts is simply that one family of grasshoppers tends to form locust swarms.

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