Bug Wiki
Sticker of Giant grasshopper
Bug card No. 0588 of 1,500

Giant grasshopper

Valanga irregularis
Name means: “Valanga comes from walang, the Javanese word for grasshopper, and irregularis means irregular, because its colours vary so much”
Eats: PlantsGrasshoppers and cricketsGardens and meadows6 legs

The giant grasshopper is the biggest grasshopper in Australia. It is brown or greyish green, with black dots on its front wings. It likes to be alone and hides so well that it looks just like a stem or a leaf.

Lives in
Warm, wet parts of Australia, in grassland, forests and gardens
Length
4.5 to 7.5 cm (1.8 to 3 in)
Top speed
about 15 km/h (9.3 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. Its spiny back legs are only for kicking away hungry mantises and spiders.
What does it eat?
It munches the leaves of bushes like hibiscus and also palm trees. It starts at the edge of the leaf and eats all night long.
For real!Photo of Giant grasshopper
Picture by Quartl. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Giant grasshopper about 7.5 cm long (3 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)A banana about 18 cm (7.1 in)
as long as 2.5 toy building bricks in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 0.2 secondsmoves 56 times its own body length every second

How big is Giant grasshopper compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The girls are bigger than the boys and can be as long as a grown-up's finger.

2

It has orange and red spines on its legs that it uses to fight off enemies.

3

The mother digs a deep hole in wet soil and lays up to 150 eggs at the bottom.

4

She plugs the hole with foam to keep the eggs moist during the dry season.

5

The babies wait for the first big rain before they crawl out of the ground.

you asked

Most asked questions about Giant grasshopper

?How big is the giant grasshopper?

Girls grow to about 60 to 75 millimetres long, and boys to about 45 to 55 millimetres.

?What does the giant grasshopper eat?

It eats the leaves of bushes such as hibiscus, and palm leaves too.

?Is the giant grasshopper dangerous?

No. It is harmless to people.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Valanga irregularis
Named by
Walker, 1870
Group
Grasshoppers and crickets
Family
Acrididae
Classification
Insecta > Orthoptera > Acrididae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Giant valanga, Hedge grasshopper

Where the facts come from

  1. Valanga irregularis (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Quartl. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.

More from the same group: Grasshoppers and crickets

Also at home here: Gardens and meadows