Hi, Hive Lovers
Recently, I have found a young grasshopper (nymph) that has just emerged from its old skin. The nymph's body is still very soft and docile because it does not have the ability to jump like an adult grasshopper.
The size of young grasshoppers that have just changed their skin is twice the size of their old skin; that's how they grow, develop, and become large enough to become adult grasshoppers.
It is very easy to take photos of young grasshoppers that have just shed their skin; they cannot move quickly, and I have brought a young grasshopper and its old skin from a plant in the garden next to my house indoors and photographed it several times with the macro mode of my #SamsungS22 cell phone camera.
Not many people pay more attention to a process, including the process of changing grasshoppers. Yes, grasshoppers are one of the small animals that undergo changes; they are not born and immediately resemble their parents.
People only know a grasshopper as a grasshopper and don't really know about the life cycle of grasshoppers with their incomplete metamorphosis process.
Their metamorphosis begins with eggs, nymphs, and adult grasshoppers (imagos). If you compare, it will be different from the perfect metamorphosis process experienced by butterflies.
When grasshoppers are in the nymph stage, they will change their skin to immediately become adult grasshoppers.
Many people also barely recognize grasshopper eggs; are you one of them?
If you find white objects the size of grains of rice around leaves, plant stems, or even in the soil, then they are probably grasshopper eggs.
But if you are not an entomologist, then you will not find them. But whoever you are, you will easily find young grasshoppers called nymphs; these are young grasshoppers that do not yet have wings like adult grasshoppers called imago.
The process of molting skin in young grasshoppers is a miracle, and it is the most vulnerable time for their existence because they will be easily hunted by predators, especially birds as their main predators.
