Common name - Say's grasshopper (Heifer, 1972).
Geographic distribution - British Columbia (Canada), South Dakota, southern Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah (Brooks, 1958). Colorado range is from the eastern plains to the eastern mountain foothills (Hebard, 1929).
Habitat - sandy areas with scattered, short, dry grasses (Hebard, 1928; Somes, 1914).
Food habits - feeds on mixed grasses and forbes. Its preferred foods are members of the mustard family. It also has been observed feeding on milkvetch, sunsedge, blue grama, scurfpea, common starkly, fringed sage and fourwing saltbush (Kumar et al., 1976; Mulkern et al., 1969).
Eggs - eggs are light brown. Each pod has 24 eggs arranged in three or four columns. Average egg length, 5 mm; average diameter, 1.3 mm (Onsager and Mulkern, 1963).
Nymph - five instars (Ramsey, 1964).
Adult - medium to large size. General color is grayish-brown with darker brown markings.
Face is vertical. Vertex is rounded. Antennae are slender. Dorsal posterior edge of
pronotum is a right angle. Median carina is visible but not a sharp ridge. It is cut
in the middle by a small notch that is shallow in comparison with the pronotal notch
of Spharagemon collare. Tegmina have three moderately distinct, dark brown bands. Wings are yellow to almost
white with a large, dark crossband and a clear apex. Inner faces of hind femora have
three black bands; bands are faintly visible on outer face. Hind tibiae are red-orange.
Male length, 25 to 32 mm; female, 30 to 40 mm (Brooks, 1958).
S. equale is alert, active and strong in flight. Upon landing it immediately runs along the
ground. It is sluggish in the early morning or late evening. Adults can be seen congregated
in small groups on vegetation-free areas. They fly away when frightened, but quickly
reassemble (Anderson,1952; Somes, 1914).
Seasonal history - adults can be found from early July to mid-September (Gillette, 1904).
Abundance and importance - a restricted range and seldom numerous (Mulkern et al., 1969)
S. equale fact sheet from the Field Guide to Common Western Grasshoppers
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Biology of Common Colorado Grasshoppers
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