Wheeler's Blue-winged Grasshopper

Large robust grasshopper with large head, Tegmina with well defined wide cross bands and usually two pale lines running along top edges when folded. Wings yellow to light blue (usually greenish) with a curved dark band (no spur) along outer margin. The species varies somewhat regionally. Those from the south in Mexico often have extremely large heads and relatively short wings. Those from the Colorado Plateaus probably have the bluest wings on average. Those from the southern Great Plains tend to be very large and more slender looking due to smaller (still big) heads and longer wings, and usually have yellow wings and often yellowish hind tibiae. See comments under Leprus intermedius . A powerful but nearly silent flier, often difficult to approach. This is one of those species that can in some areas be rare or apparently absent for many years, and then all of the sudden will be extremely abundant for a year or several. This is particularly true in the north of its range (as in Utah and Colorado). In parts of w. Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, it is often one of the most common and prominent Band-wing Grasshoppers of the later part of the season. In evening this species is sometimes attracted to lights in large numbers, and seems to be capable of flying long distances to reach them.