As I looked through my macro lens, I felt for a moment like a matador. The grasshopper in my viewfinder had lowered its head and was preparing to charge me, trying its best to gore me with its fearsome fluted horns. I wasn’t dressed for the part and had no little red cape to bravely wave at the charging grasshopper.
In reality, I am not sure what kind of a grasshopper this is. It looks a little like a Slant-faced Grasshopper, but I have never before seen one with such unusual, horn-shaped antennae. This grasshopper hopped up onto this stalk of grass as I was searching for dragonflies this past weekend. I don’t know much about the developmental cycle of grasshoppers and wonder if this might be a nymph.
In the absence of any scientific information, I think I’ll informally call this the Dual-unicorn Grasshopper, because the shape and pattern of the antennae remind me of so many of the depictions I have seen of the mythical unicorn.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
Those antennas look more like weapons, possibly a defensive mechanism to scare away predators? Interesting find.
I am clueless about the purpose of those strange looking antennae. I like to shoot first and ask questions later and now I have a lot of unanswered questions.
I see some googling in your future then mike. Photography is one of the few professions when you can shoot first and as questions later
Cool! I’ve never seen anything like that before.
I’m hoping to figure out what it is and will let folks know if I manage to do so.
Never seen one like that either, excellent shots..:-)
Wow-I’ve never seen one like it. That’s the great thing about being outside; you never know what you’ll see.
I think we are alike, Allen, in the way that we are constantly scanning our surroundings for new and different things.
Wow! He’s certainly unusual. I’ve never seen anything like him at all.
Well the imagery of you and a red cape fighting a grasshopper is quite a picture!
Love your title and opening lines! 😉
I think these are cone-headed grasshoppers.
I wondered too if it might be cone-headed, but the antennae seem a lot shorter and a different shape than the photos I saw on line. Whatever species it turns out to be, it’s definitely unusual looking.
It looks like it’s a good thing the grasshopper isn’t — say 2 feet long.
If it were bigger, it could star in a movie with Godzilla and Mothra!
That is a strange one. I never saw that reaction or those antennae either.
Almost chameleon-like.
According to the folks at BugGuide, it looks like this is a Cattail Toothpick Grasshopper (Leptysma marginicollis). (http://bugguide.net/node/view/4997)
It never ceases to amaze me just how beautiful and intricate these tiny creatures are when seen through a macro lens.
The complexity of the natural world is so amazing…There is not a day that I don’t find something that just absolutely amazes me.