Red-winged Grasshopper

About the Red-winged Grasshopper

The Red-winged Grasshopper is a band-winged grasshopper of the dry West. At rest it is easy to miss: a dark, almost black grasshopper that sits low on bare ground and gravel and blends into the shadows. When it flies, it suddenly shows bright red hind wings with a dark border, and it gives off a loud dry crackle as it goes. This flash and noise startles a predator, then the color vanishes again the moment the grasshopper lands.

This is a fall grasshopper. The nymphs grow through the summer, and the adults are out from late summer into fall, often on dirt roads, trail edges, and open grassland. In the West it is one of the most common grasshoppers in late season, and in Texas it is found mostly in the Trans-Pecos and the Panhandle.

Males make the crackling sound on purpose in display flights, and both sexes crackle when they flush, so a walk through dry grass in October can sound like popcorn.

This one was photographed along Highway 118 in the Davis Mountains of Jeff Davis County in October 2026.