Grasshopper or Cricket Nymphs in Plant pots

[Cotham Marble]

This is really just to share an oddity rather than get a certain ID, though all suggestions are welcome.

I've just removed to the garden, 20 nymphs from the inside of a kitchen window, where it seems they must have hatched from one or more pots of Crassula argentea (Money Plant/Jane Plant). The image of these little critters hopping about indoors was decidedly strange. Unfourtunately I don't have a camera capable of giving adequate definition and my own visual capacity is not up to much either, so other than being certain that they were grasshopper or cricket, the only other ident I can give is that they were uniformly brown and 4mm in length with the hind legs of apparently equal size.

The pot plants were outside last September for a few weeks, and the pot soil was topped up with compost that had been in left open in a shed for some months, so I'd guess that one of those aspects was the vesctor for eggs to be in the pot soil.

CM

[Geoff F]

To start with; did they have long or short antenna? That should separate Crickets from Grasshoppers and provide a starting point.

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by Geoff F

To start with; did they have long or short antenna? That should separate Crickets from Grasshoppers and provide a starting point.

I could just discern short stubby antenna. The source environment for the parent of these nymphs was a heavily grown out lawn, and as I wasn't here before last Autumn I've no idea what the resident fauna may have included.

CM

[Jason Claxton]

Hi CM

Also have you ruled out Common or Slender Groundhopper,these are small even as adults 8-11 mm,it feeds on mosses,algae and lichen.

Cheers Jason.