On Saturday I found this tiny grasshopper in my backyard, it's about 15mm long. I was quite excited by it, because I knew that I'd never seen this species before, and to find it in my completely flagged back yard in November seemed strange to say the least, for a group of inverts that I normally associate with flower filled meadows on hot sunny days in summer! On top of that, we don't really see very many grasshoppers of any species in St Helens, so I was quite keen to find out what it was.
The first thing to say is, I've been decorating recently, and this unfortunate insect seems to have walked into some white paint. So ignore the white bits, it's really completely dark brown!
A few tweets and messages later, I had my answer, it's a slender grasshopper (or groundhopper)
Tetrix subulata, a species which is largely confined to the midlands and south east England, with just a handful of records from the Sefton coast and around Bolton. So it's not a million miles away from St Helens, but so far a I can tell, this is the first record for the borough.
