Bird Grasshopper

Schistocerca pallens · Order: Orthoptera · Family: Acrididae

Damages trees, gardens or crops. Schistocerca pallens can cause economic damage by feeding on a wide range of crops such as sugar cane, maize, rice, and many vegetables.

Source: Wikipedia

Bird Grasshopper
Photo: Rodrigo Paiva Lázaro, CC BY

It is a large grasshopper often called a bird grasshopper. Although it never forms swarms, high numbers can still damage fields and gardens.

Source: Wikipedia

Size

Schistocerca pallens is a large grasshopper.

Source: Wikipedia

Is it a pest in the house?

When present in high densities it can cause economic damage to crops and gardens.

Source: Wikipedia

What it eats

It feeds on many cultivated plants, including sugar cane, almond, banana, beans, breadfruit, coconut, cotton, maize, rice, sorghum, sweet potato, tomatoes and others.

Source: Wikipedia

Lookalikes

It looks similar to its close relative Schistocerca cancellata.

Source: Wikipedia

Where it is found in the US

Recorded in 1 of 51 states and DC. Most records: Florida.

Darker = more records. Counts are museum and citizen-science records, not population size.

Source: GBIF

Status: native in North America. Source: iNaturalist

Questions people ask

What crops does Schistocerca pallens damage?

It feeds on sugar cane, almonds, bananas, beans, breadfruit, coconut palms, cotton, maize, rice, sorghum, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and many other crops.

Source: Wikipedia

Does Schistocerca pallens swarm like other locusts?

No, it never shows swarming behavior or phase polymorphism, even when crowded.

Source: Wikipedia

Same family (Acrididae)

Differential GrasshopperDifferential GrasshopperMelanoplus differentialisDamages trees, gardens or cropsTwo-striped GrasshopperTwo-striped GrasshopperMelanoplus bivittatusDamages trees, gardens or cropsCarolina GrasshopperCarolina GrasshopperDissosteira carolinaDamages trees, gardens or cropsCommon Field GrasshopperCommon Field GrasshopperChorthippus brunneusEgyptian Bird GrasshopperEgyptian Bird GrasshopperAnacridium aegyptiumGray Bird GrasshopperGray Bird GrasshopperSchistocerca nitensDamages trees, gardens or crops

Sources

  • Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schistocerca_pallens

Look it up elsewhere: GBIF · iNaturalist · BugGuide · Wikipedia

Text written 2026-10-23 from the sources above and checked sentence by sentence against them. Data fetched 2026-10-23.

How this page works

This is one bug's fact sheet. The colored box at the top says whether it is dangerous. Sections below cover how to recognize it, whether it is a pest, and how to deal with it. The US map shows which states have records; tap a state to see other bugs there.

Every fact on Bug FAQ comes from a named source (university extension sites, government agencies, GBIF, iNaturalist, Wikipedia). The source is linked next to each section. If we have no source for something, we leave it out.