This is the animal that came to visit me the other day:
Almost gave me a heart attack.
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Clarissa's Blog 
A grasshopper! So beautiful! How big was it?
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As big as a good-sized dog! OK, I’m exaggerating but it was still enormous. I’ve seen insects the size of my fist fly into the house and chase me around. And here I’m not exaggerating.
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We very rarely get grasshoppers where I am. So jealous. Not so jealous of the other bugs, though. :p We’ve had a really big crane fly season here, and for a while it was impossible to open the door without ten of them getting in the house. Without my glasses on they look like spiders, and that freaks me out more than a little.
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Why do you like the grasshoppers, though? They are creepy with these weird-shaped extremities.
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I don’t know. I guess I just find them pretty. If I could, I’d probably look at one for hours and hours, memorizing all the details. Maybe trying to figure the evolutionary advantage to those weird extremities. But mostly just observing. I do it with other things, too–other insects and animals, artwork, things that just strike my eye. This summer I went kayaking at sunset and the lake was all silver-gold and there were loons and I couldn’t stop looking. I got the feeling that any picture I could have taken would have ruined it somehow, would have dulled the memory just by being an imperfect projection. It might have something to do with my autism, but I don’t know. I’ve done stuff like that since I can remember. My love of grasshoppers is just a small part of it. :p
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When I was a kid, I was obsessed with ladybirds. I carried them with me everywhere, fed them, took care of them. They were my pets. So I feel you, my friend. 🙂
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Ever hear the parable of the ant and the grasshopper, Clarissa? It’s all about how hard work, perseverance, and dedication pay off in the long run. And it means those little guys will be gone by winter. 🙂
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I always identified with the grasshopper in that fable. 🙂
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It may have been a locust, if it were big. Usual grasshoppers aren’t huge.
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My husband also thinks it’s a locust. Which makes me think of biblical punishments, etc. and that’s disturbing.
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Don’t worry, no locust has read the bible so they are quite un-influenced by it! This does look like a locust, which are just a variety of large grasshopper. They do sometimes swarm, but mostly they don’t. They can also fly very long distances, so if you’ve never seen any others your visitor has probably arrived at your place by mistake, locusts aren’t very bright. They are edible, if fried apparently they taste a bit like prawns, although I don’t intend trying them.
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“It’s an animal that can directly assume a posture of defense through its natural vehicles…” sorry couldn’t help myself with that title.
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