Okay, this has really been bugging me, this grasshoppers-missing-a-leg thing. As I said, it's not the first time we've seen missing legs this summer. (See picture at right, taken by me on 7.28.07.) I mean, what is up with that anyway? Not that it matters, but doggone it, it does matter. It's just not normal. I couldn't take my Sunday nap because I kept thinking about it.
So I did the logical thing - I googled it.
And lo and behold . . . it . . . is . . . apparently . . . not . . . that . . . uncommon.
Huh.
Amazing fact - The extensor muscle from the back leg of an adult female locust (Schistocerca gregaria) can develop a force of up to 1.4 kg. This means that the muscle from one back leg of a grasshopper (admittedly quite a large one) can lift almost a bag-and-a-half of supermarket sugar!
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Legless in Ohio
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"Bejeweled"
2 comments:
Great thought on the missing legs! I wonder about the same. Dragonflies and lizards I photograph sometimes have missing limbs as well. Tough little survival stories.
Today I saw the biggest cricket in my garden it too had missing limbs and I was going to photograph it because I thought it was dead but when I got close enough it hopped away even with the missing limbs.
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