365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Monday, September 9, 2019
Hopper Heaven
Day 331: "Rainierensis" should give you a clue, and a quote from noted entomologist Andrew Nelson Caudell described them as "numerous in Paradise Valley, where they were destroying grass and small plants." If you're travelling at timberline in the Park in September, you'll find his statement entirely believable. The Cascade Timberline Grasshopper (Prumnacris rainierensis) is arguably our most abundant 'hopper, and when I say "abundant," I mean that they can be found by the thousands on the bare soil of the trails in the high country at this time of year, and you'd probably send a few million into a panic if you walked fifty feet into a patch of Subalpine Lupine. They're small, no more than an inch long, but the crackling of a mass of them sounds like electricity arcing through the meadows. Personally, I've never noted that they were particularly destructive; rather, they are an integral part of the Cascadian biosphere which includes Mount Rainier National Park.
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