Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: What do Grasshoppers eat?
Grasshoppers eat large quantities of foliage both as adults and during their development, and can be serious pests of arid land and prairies. Pasture, grain, forage, vegetable and other crops can be affected. Grasshoppers often bask in the sun, and thrive in warm sunny conditions, so drought stimulates an increase in grasshopper populations. A single season of drought is not normally sufficient to stimulate a major population increase, but several successive dry seasons can do so, especially if the intervening winters are mild so that large numbers of nymphs survive. Although sunny weather stimulates growth, there needs to be an adequate food supply for the increasing grasshopper population. This means that although precipitation is needed to stimulate plant growth, prolonged periods of cloudy weather will slow nymphal development.
The antelope jackrabbit feeds on cacti, grasses, and other leafy vegetation. This species has been observed digging and eating soil in an attempt to intake minerals and other nutrients. They can be classified as folivores and graminivores.
Common insects that prey on wasps include praying mantises, dragonflies, centipedes, beetles and moths. In fact, large wasps will even prey on smaller wasps. Spiders will also capture wasps in their webs and eat them. Predatory reptiles and amphibians, such as frogs, lizards, toads, and salamanders see the wasp as just another opportunistic meal and do not differentiate them from other insects, despite their feared sting. Birds that regularly consume bugs will also eat wasps. Other creatures that eat wasps, particularly mammals, are more interested in the larvae rather than the adults.
Many prey animals, and to defend against seed predation also seeds of plants, make use of poisonous chemicals for self-defence. These may be concentrated in surface structures such as spines or glands, giving an attacker a taste of the chemicals before it actually bites or swallows the prey animal: many toxins are bitter-tasting. A last-ditch defence is for the animal's flesh itself to be toxic, as in the puffer fish, danaid butterflies and burnet moths. Many insects acquire toxins from their food plants; "Danaus" caterpillars accumulate toxic cardenolides from milkweeds (Asclepiadaceae).
Mosquitoes of the genus "Toxorhynchites" never drink blood. This genus includes the largest extant mosquitoes, the larvae of which prey on the larvae of other mosquitoes. These mosquito eaters have been used in the past as mosquito control agents, with varying success.
While comparing between various classes of animals, a different unit is used, body length per second for organisms. The fastest organism on earth, relative to body length, is the South Californian mite "Paratarsotomus macropalpis", which has a speed of 322 body lengths per second. The equivalent speed for a human running as fast as this mite would be . This is far in excess of the previous record holder, the Australian tiger beetle, "Cicindela eburneola", the fastest insect in the world relative to body size, which has been recorded at or 171 body lengths per second. The cheetah, the fastest land mammal, scores at only 16 body lengths per second while Anna's hummingbird has the highest known length-specific velocity attained by any vertebrate
The closest relatives of mantises are the termites and cockroaches (Blattodea), which are all within the superorder Dictyoptera. Mantises are sometimes confused with stick insects (Phasmatodea), other elongated insects such as grasshoppers (Orthoptera), or other unrelated insects with raptorial forelegs such as mantisflies (Mantispidae). Mantises are mostly ambush predators, but a few ground-dwelling species are found actively pursuing their prey. They normally live for about a year. In cooler climates, the adults lay eggs in autumn, then die. The eggs are protected by their hard capsules and hatch in the spring. Females sometimes practice sexual cannibalism, eating their mates after copulation.
In 1911, Abraham Isaac Kook, the chief rabbi of Ottoman Palestine, addressed a question to the rabbinic Court at Sana'a concerning their custom of eating grasshoppers, and whether this custom was observed by observing their outward features, or by simply relying upon an oral tradition. The reply given to him by the court was as follows: "The grasshoppers which are eaten by way of a tradition from our forefathers, which happen to be clean, are well-known unto us. But there are yet other species which have all the recognizable features of being clean, yet do we practice abstaining from them. [Appendage]: The clean grasshoppers () about which we have a tradition are actually three species having each one different coloration [from the other], and each of them are called by us in the Arabian tongue, "ğarād" (locusts). But there are yet other species, about which we have no tradition, and we will not eat them. One of which is a little larger in size than the grasshoppers, having the name of "`awsham". There is yet another variety, smaller in size than the grasshopper, and it is called "ḥanājir" (katydids)."
The Paridae are mainly small stocky woodland species with short stout bills. Some have crests. They are adaptable birds, with a mixed diet including seeds and insects.
Group D
Gerrids, or water striders, are preyed upon largely by birds and some fish. Petrels, terns, and some marine fish prey on Halobates. Fish do not appear to be the main predators of water striders, but will eat them in cases of starvation. Scent gland secretions from the thorax are responsible for repelling fish from eating them. Gerrids are largely hunted by birds of a wide range of species dependent on habitat. Some water striders are hunted by frogs, but they are not their main food source. Water striders are also sometimes hunted by each other. Water strider cannibalism involves mainly hunting nymphs for mating territory and sometimes for food. To escape predators, water striders will either fly away to a neighboring pond or dive under water. This avoidance of predation aids the dispersal process and thus spread of a species over a larger area of land. As species encounter new areas of land, they adapt to new environments. There are so many species of water strider partially as a result of this dispersion and adaptation over time.
This subspecies eats geckos, house mice, birds, and marsupials, including the Tammar wallaby.
The young of brooding red-eared firetails, "Stagonopleura oculata", were taken from a nest being observed.
"Phytoplankton are eaten by zooplankton - small animals which, like phytoplankton, drift in the ocean currents. The most abundant zooplankton species are copepods and krill: tiny crustaceans that are the most numerous animals on Earth. Other types of zooplankton include jelly fish and the larvae of fish, marine worms, starfish, and other marine organisms". In turn, the zooplankton are eaten by filter-feeding animals, including some seabirds, small forage fish like herrings and sardines, whale sharks, manta rays, and the largest animal in the world, the blue whale. Yet again, moving up the foodchain, the small forage fish are in turn eaten by larger predators, such as tuna, marlin, sharks, large squid, seabirds, dolphins, and toothed whales.
Hosts
Sparrows are small passerine birds. In general, sparrows tend to be small, plump, brown or grey birds with short tails and short powerful beaks. Sparrows are seed eaters, but they also consume small insects. There are 35 species worldwide and 2 species which occur in Malaysia.
They are mostly ambush predators, but a few ground-dwelling species are found actively pursuing their prey. They normally live for about a year. In cooler climates, the adults lay eggs in autumn then die. The eggs are protected by their hard capsules and hatch in the spring. Females sometimes practice sexual cannibalism, eating their mates after copulation. Occasionally, the females decapitate the males just before or during mating. Over 2,400 species of mantis in about 430 genera are recognized.
After breeding, the female can eat her mate because, like with most mantis species, they are cannibalistic. Nymphs up to their fourth instar are not cannibalistic. The female lay egg cases (ootheca) almost three times its size, and will usually hatch between 30 to 50 offspring. Ootheca survive in the same conditions as the mantis.
Striga hermonthica, commonly known as purple witchweed or giant witchweed, is a hemiparasitic plant that belongs to the family Orobanchaceae. It is devastating to major crops such as sorghum ("Sorghum bicolor") and rice ("Oryza sativa"). In sub-Saharan Africa, apart from sorghum and rice, it also infests maize ("Zea mays"), pearl millet ("Pennisetum glaucum"), and sugar cane ("Saccharum officinarum").
The mite has been recorded at a speed of 322 body lengths per second (). This is far in excess of the previous record holder, the Australian tiger beetle "Cicindela eburneola", the fastest insect in the world relative to body size, which has been recorded at or 171 body lengths per second. The cheetah, the fastest land animal, which has been clocked at a peak of , scores at only 16 body lengths per second.
One disadvantage to making nests is that most, if not all, of the nest-maker’s offspring are concentrated in one place, making them highly vulnerable to predation. Once a predator finds a nest, it can plunder it cell by cell. A variety of parasitic wasps, ranging from extremely tiny chalcidoid wasps to larger, bright green chrysidid wasps attack mud dauber nests. They pirate provisions and offspring as food for their own offspring.
A very large balance of the prey range can also be comprised by birds and other prey including reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects and other invertebrates are seemingly taken whenever they are available. All told, well more than 600 different species have been identified as prey of Eurasian eagle-owls. Their diet includes basically all the same prey as all sympatric diurnal raptors in the genera "Buteo", "Aquila" and "Haliaeetus". The total number of prey species may even surpass that of the great horned owl and may well be the greatest of any raptorial bird on the Eurasian continent. Among five segments of Europe the average prey diversity per region was 63 species, a higher number than any of the other 40 raptorial bird species studied there. The mean mass of prey per study has varied from as little as , near the now former Aral Sea in Turkmenistan with the Turkmen jerboa ("Jaculus turkmenicus") being the primary prey species, to , in Spain with the European rabbit being the primary prey species. Remarkably, in northern Spain, where the rabbit is now extirpated (as was the eagle-owl for a time in the 20th century), the average weight of prey can dip as low as . In comparison, the lightest mean prey mass in dietary studies of the great horned owl was while the highest was .
Its diet consists of mostly small invertebrates, such as caterpillars, beetle larvae, earthworms, centipedes, slugs, and sow bugs. It will also eat from the corpses of dead animals, and small amounts of seeds or fruits. This shrew will eat its prey whole, but when eating crickets and grasshoppers, the North American least shrew will bite off the head of its prey and eat only the internal organs. When fighting a larger creature, it will aim for the legs and try to cripple its adversary, and will bite lizards, which are often too large for it to kill, on the tail, which then falls off and provides it with a meal while the lizard escapes. The North American least shrew will also sometimes live inside beehives and eat all the larvae. It will often share its food with other shrews. It eats more than its body weight each day and is known to store food.
The summer diet of Cassin's sparrows consists primarily of insects, especially grasshoppers, caterpillars, and beetles. Additional insects specifically mentioned in the literature include true bugs, ants, bees, wasps, weevils, spiders, snails, and moths. The young are fed almost entirely insects. note that observations of a Cassin's sparrow nest for 18 hours in 1984 showed that of 208 insects delivered to nestlings, 197 (95%) were acridid grasshoppers. However, reported that the stomachs of ten adults taken during the breeding season (late June and early July) contained animal and vegetable matter in about equal proportions (52% and 48%, respectively; range = 5–95%). He also found that five migrant Cassin's sparrow stomachs contained 99% animal material (range = 90–100%). There is a report of Cassin's sparrows eating flower buds of blackthorn bush ("Condalia spathulata") in season. In fall and winter, Cassin's sparrows eat the seeds of weeds and grasses. particularly mentions the consumption of seeds of chickweed (family Alsinaceae), plantain ("Plantago" spp.), woodsorrel ("Xanthoxalis" spp.), sedge ("Carex" spp.), panicum ("Panicum" spp.), other grasses, and sorghum ("Sorghum" spp.).
Approximately 50% of the gray catbird's diet is fruit and berries. They also eat mealworms, earthworms, beetles, and other bugs. In summer, gray catbirds will eat mostly ants, beetles, grasshoppers, caterpillars, and moths. They also eat holly berries, cherries, elderberries, poison ivy, bay, and blackberries.
Grasshoppers in general, including this species, are herbivorous and subsist mainly on grasses. Scientists have gained knowledge of the diet of "G. rufus" through the use of feces as a source of DNA. It has been documented to eat plants of the genus "Bromus", the species "Holcus lanatus", and the subfamily Pooideae, all within the family Poaceae. Poaceae is a family of flowering monocots whose members are referred to as true grasses. Pooideae includes lawn grasses and cereals such as wheat and barley. "Bromus" is composed of grasses called brome grasses or cheat grasses. "Holcus lanatus", more commonly known as Yorkshire fog or velvet grass, is a species of perennial pasture grass noted for its hairy texture. The rufous grasshopper has also been known to sparingly eat other plants such as rushes.