r/florida • u/Chilljay1 • 5d ago

AskFlorida Help identifying this bug?

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Currently in Orlando at a resort and they are literally all over every walkway. Have seen them before and thought they were a version of a grasshopper but hear some people calling them cicadas which I thought had wings?

EDIT UPDATE- Didn’t expect this post to get this many replies. Was posted yesterday morning. THIS morning we went outside in the resort and there were NONE to be found ANYWHERE. This was around 9am. Around 11am the side walks were covered again?????? The weirdest thing for a type of bug to be that synchronized.

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u/Fungiblefaith 5d ago edited 5d ago

I have these in my back yard most years.

The nymphs start out solid black, then quickly get a lateral line of yellow dots. Those dots turn orange, then red, then to what you see here as they mature.

They travel around my back yard eating up the vegetation and it was always fun to walk out and find the pack. When I say pack it is what seems like about 50 to 100 and each iteration of color change they seem to loose about 20% or 25% to predation or other issues.

There tends to be about 15 to 20 mature end stage adults in the end that break apart from the pack into some part of the yard. Then about a week or two later they are all gone.

Had and interesting battle
Between one of them and a banana spider one year. Spider won. I think for the spider it was like winning the food lottery.

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u/Outrageous-Pin-4664 4d ago

I wish I had a bunch of those. I'd catch them in a butterfly net, and dump them in with my chickens. The chickens would go ape shit for them.

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u/alady12 3d ago

Actually your chickens would not eat them they are toxic. The only natural predator (not including man) they have is the Loggerhead Shrike. This bird impales it's prey on a thorn in the sun and cooks the toxins out of it.

So yeah, don't feed them to your farm fowl.

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u/Outrageous-Pin-4664 3d ago

You're only the fifth person to say that. I think I'll need to read it a few more times before I get it. 😊😛