Grasshopper Lab

Introduction:

This laboratory consisted of each member of the class dissecting a different specimen to analyze the anatomy and physiology. The specimen I chose was the eastern lubber grasshopper, also known as romalea guttata. This type of grasshopper has a bright red or brownish color. The word lubber comes from the Latin lazy; this grasshopper is very slow moving. The eastern lubber grasshopper is a flightless insect even though it has wings. Its wings are used more for gliding rather than flying. The romalea guttata resides in the south eastern part of the U.S. They live mostly in moist woods or crops.

The Taxonomy of the Romalea guttata is the following:

1. Kingdom: Animalia

2. Phylum: Arthropoda

a. Latin for joint + foot

b. Exoskeleton

c. External segmented limbs

d. Billateral Symetry

3. Class: insect

4. Order: Orthoptera

a. Includes grasshoppers and crickets

5. Sub order: Caelifera

a. Grasshopper specifically

6. Family: Romalidae

The Eastern lubber grasshopper has an exoskeleton which provides protection in form of armor to the organs inside. The exoskeleton is made up of a substance called chitin which insects use to create their “shells”. The only problem of the exoskeleton is that growth is limited for the insect, thus it has to shed it multiple times to allow growth.

Grasshoppers in general have a very short life-span. They live for about 12 months. 10 of these months they are in an egg. When hatched they enter the nymph stage in which they shed their exoskeleton 5 to 6 times. After 30 days they become adults and feed on plants such as grass and lives. Finally they die.

The grasshopper’s external anatomy is divided into three parts: head, thorax and abdomen. The head serves as the sensors of the body by using its antenna. It has a pair of compound eyes to see, mandibles to eat and pulps to taste food. The thorax is composed of the walking legs and a set of small wings. The abdomen of the Romalea guttata contains a set of eight spiracles which are used for breathing and the reproductive organs.

The nervous system is composed of a brain which actually is the result of pair of ganglia fused together. Ganglia are a connection of nerve cells that run through the whole body connected by the nerve chord. The ganglia divide and each do a different job. One is for vision, another for processes and one for digestion.

The respiratory system is composed mainly of the spiracles. Grasshoppers don’t have lungs. The spiracles are openings that lead to the trachea allowing air to come into the insect.

The circulatory system consists of the blood and heart. The heart of a grasshopper is actually a dorsal vessel that goes through the whole specimen. Blood is carried throughout the whole body and returns to the abdomen to begin again.

The digestive system is quite complex. The grasshopper swallows the food and goes to the crop where the food is grinded into small particles. It then goes towards the stomach where the gastric ceca release enzymes to digest the food.

The reproductive system is based on the male inserting sperm into the ovipositor of the female. The female once it has her egg deposits it in the soil at a temperature of 30 degrees C.

Procedure:

1. Receive a specimen from the teacher. Romalea Guttata

2. Find the materials necessary for the lab

3. Identify the animals sex

4. Cut all legs

5. Pin down the specimen

6. Cut the specimen with a scalpel removing its exoskeleton

7. Identify the organs of the specimen

8. Give an oral presentation

9. Clean up your specimen

Materials:

1. Dissection board

2. Scalpel

3. Dissection pins

4. Specimen (Romalea Guttata)

5. Camera

6. Gloves

7. Lab apron

Conclusion:

In conclusion I was able to identify each organ of the grasshopper and saw its complete anatomy. Also I learned all about how the systems of the grasshopper work. The dissection seemed very hard at first but towards the end it became rather simple. Insects are completely different to us humans even though we both carry eukaryotic cells goes to show that every species has something different from each other.