What is the scientific difference between a grasshopper and a cricket? We live in Beijing and they have this “Guoguo” of giant grasshopper which makes a very significant sound. Please look it up at you tube they have a video.

Do grasshoppers and crickets hibernate?

Thanks Anita in Beijing

Well, to me, the Guoguo looks like a katydid and not a grasshopper. Grasshoppers, katydids and crickets all belong to the order Orthoptera, which has variable body size, chewing mouthparts, well-developed compound eyes, and most have 2 pair of wings. The orthoptera can then be divided into two groups, one which is the grasshoppers (Caelifera) and the other contains the katydids and crickets (Ensifera).

Grasshoppers have short antennae, short ovipositors, less than 3 segments on the tarsi and the tympana is found on the abdomen. Crickets and katydids have really long antenna, more than 3 segments on the tarsi, long, sword-shaped ovipositors, and the tympana found on the forelegs.

Whether they hibernate or not would depend on where and which species you are talking about. Generally though, no, the adults die when the freezing temperatures come and it is the eggs that over winter and then hatch in the late spring/summer.

Well I got scolded by my little sister saying I haven’t been updating regularly on the site. I’ll admit, I’ve been busy with work and trying to buy a house in the current market. Haven’t been keeping my camera on me lately.

But, some of you have kept your cameras with you and have steadily been sending ‘Ask an Ento’ questions. A lot of the questions have been about bug identifications.

Lisa wrote:

Hi I was just wondering if I could send a picture of this bug I found on my windshield the other day. It looked like some sort of bee/wasp except it was very long(2 or 3 inches). It was black and yellow with wings, and its stinger had to be an inch or so long. I was in the VA Beach area, and I’ve seen nothing like that before. I’ve looked on many websites, and I cannot find an insect like it.

I really like that photo and its of a megarhyssa parasitoid ichneumon wasp. They use those very long ovipositors to drill into trees to lay their eggs on developing woodwasp larvae. Kind of funny pic because you usually see those bugs in the woods…and from the pic it looks like this little lady got a little lost.

Another reader, Annie, asked about the following:

I found your blog by googling “ask an entomologist” haha. I’m one of those “what is this bug in my house?” people. I found some sort of unusual beetle (I think) and was wondering what it was as I’ve never seen it around here before (here being NJ). I took a picture of it after putting it on our porch. I am just curious what it is and hoping they don’t take over my house. I’ve only seen a few over the past couple
months but they don’t seem dangerous, just slowly strolling along.

That is not a beetle, but a stink bug. They have glands in their thorax that produce the ’stink’ part of their name. The liquid they produce is part of their defense mechanism against predators. They use a long piercing-sucking mouth`part to feed on plant juices.

Wesley wrote:

We recently had an infestation of fruit flies in our apartment in New York City. I understand it has something to do with the time of the year. But when I squashed some of them (I eventually killed them all, dear me), I noticed they had red blood. Question: do they have red blood or were they somehow feeding on us?

The red stuff wasn’t blood from the insect or the humans…it was likely the red pigment in the eyes of the flies, and as you know, fruit flies often have red colored eyes. Didn’t know bugs had pigment in their eyes, did you??