True Land Lubbers: Facts about one of Florida's Strangest Insects

    Romalea microptera or Romalea guttata depending on who you ask, is a large flightless species of grasshopper. More commonly known as the Eastern Lubber Grasshopper or simply Lubber or more colloquially "Devil's Horses", they can be found throughout the southeastern region of the United States. The name Lubber likely comes from the word lubber, which means slow and clumsy. This perfectly describes how the insect moves, by slowly walking over the ground, and occasionally hopping when they need to move faster. 

    As mentioned previously the Lubber is flightless, despite this like most grasshoppers the Lubber has wings. They use the wings to stridulate, which is when a Lubber rubs its forewing and hindwing to make noise. They also use their wings to try and ward off threats. When threatened Lubbers will spread out their wings to make themselves look larger and hiss. When that fails the Lubber can fire a fine spray of toxic chemicals out of their spiracles. The spray can reach up to 15 centimeters. Don't be scared though as while it is toxic to birds and small mammals, to humans it will at worst stain your clothes. Click here to hear Lubber stridulating.

    The life cycle of the Lubber is interesting. Lubbers go through 5 nymphal stages which are called instar before reaching maturity, each one lasting only 15 days. Lubbers are also paurometabolous, meaning their nymphal forms resemble their adult forms. Click here to see examples of Lubber nymphs. Once Lubbers reach maturity they begin mating. The mating behavior of Lubber's is ritualized. The mating begins when a male mounts a female, then both insects rock back and forth. While they are rocking the male will flip up his wing covers revealing his red hind wings and make a clicking sound. Click here to see an example of Lubber mating. Once the female is ready to lay eggs the male will guard her from predators, sometimes for an entire day. The females will lay anywhere from 1 to 3 clutches of eggs, with about 50 eggs per clutch, in 2 inch deep holes she digs herself. After that the female Lubber covers the eggs so that they will be insulated in the winter. All adult Lubbers die in the winter from lower temperatures, and once spring starts the eggs hatch and the Lubber nymphs unbury themselves to start the cycle anew.