Hello everyone and welcome to the wonderful and exciting world of endangered grasshoppers. I’m Jaron Johnson and today I will be discussing the Zayante band-winged grasshopper, also scientifically known as the Trimerotropis infantilis.
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Like other insects such as butterflies and dragonflies, the Zayante band-winged grasshopper is a invertebrate insect, which means that the grasshoppers internal skeleton is not made of bone. This specie also falls under the Animalia kingdom and has a domain of eukarya.
The habitat for these grasshoppers is very rare and unique. They stay in a Zayante sand hill ecosystem, which has very little vegetation and is mostly made of sand and soil sediments. The sandy areas are sparsely covered with herbs, lotus, and grasses at the base of the pines. This beautiful yellow winged grasshopper can only be found in the Santa Cruz County, in the Zayante sand hills of California.
Because grasshopper are herbivores, the Zayante band-winged grasshopper only feeds on plants. It is hard to know exactly what this grasshopper eats, but I’m sure it feasts on the herbs, and grasses of it habitat. Also, because these grasshoppers are only 13 to 17 millimeters in length, they have to worry less about what they have to eat and more about what might be trying to eat them.
The Zayante band-winged grasshopper has been lucky enough for bioprospectors to look over it. These are people who collect biological material and analysis it property to later make products for commercial use. Because these grasshopper lives in such unique and rare conditions it might be the next target of studies, maybe for some type of medication or anti-biotic.
It brings a tear to my eye to say that this lovely specie has been on the endangered species list since 1997. The main factor that is threatening the existence of these grasshoppers is a loss of habitat. The loss of habitat is mainly due to human activity such as recreational developments, and sand mining. These grasshoppers are also being bullied out of there habitat by the entering of non native plant species. The non native species include the Portuguese broom and the sea fig.
Global warming is also a dangerous fact that effects the life of this endangered insect because of the rare condition it lives in. There habitat is designed especially for this species, so any environmental changes can be fatal. The increase in the temperature that global warming causes could lower the amount of vegetation that grows in this habitat. This might then force the grasshoppers to look for better conditions and lead to there extinction.
Now know everyone must be wondering why does this person care so much about a useless grasshopper? The answer is simple, I believe if you let one die then you let them all die. If we continue to move in on rare and unique animals we are not only destroying the lives of these animals, but also the animals that depend on that animal to survive. To me is like a chain reaction cause we never know if the extinction of one specie will lead to the extinction of the next, and sooner or later there will be no more species left.
Sources:
Endangered Species Program
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Threatened and Endangered Animals and Plants
Camping World
http://www.earthsendangered.com/profile.asp?view=c&ID=9&sp=664
Trimerotropis infantilis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimerotropis_infantilis
Effects of Global Warming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming
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