Electronic Key for Common Adult Grasshoppers of the Western United States
(Lucid^TM Key)
 

Created by the Decision Support and Pest Management Systems Laboratory of the USDA-APHIS Center for Plant Health Science and Technology

Even commonly encountered grasshoppers can be difficult to identify using traditional dichotomous keys. The electronic key for Common Adult Rangeland Grasshoppers of the Western United States is a powerful yet simple interactive identification and information system that operates under the Lucid^TM system. It will allow you to identify and find information for 70 of the most common adult grasshoppers of the Western U.S. which pose the greatest environmental and economic threat. Nymphs were not included in this key. This key has been designed for people with varying degrees of knowledge identifying rangeland grasshoppers.

The key contains a list of grasshoppers, their characters and associated character states.  An identification proceeds as simply as this - by choosing more and more features (from the list in Characters Available) that describes your specimen. This process of selecting character states continues until the grasshopper (taxa) list is reduced to a short list of possibilities, and in most cases, down to a single grasshopper. Character states are illustrated with images that help you understand the character and its states.

ELECTRONIC KEY UPDATE NOW AVAILABLE!
 

Grasshoppers of the Western United States, Edition 3.0 was released in July 2008. The new edition, which features new high resolution photographs and several species not covered in earlier editions, helps users identify 70 of the most common adult grasshoppers of the western United States, many of which pose environmental and economic threats. Grasshoppers of the Western United States, Edition 3.0 is a multi-platform web-based version of the Electronic Key for Common Adult Grasshoppers written in Java. The interactive key component of this identification tool requires that your computer have Java Runtime Environment installed; Lucid software is not necessary. It does require an Internet connection.

To Access the New "Edition 3.0" go to: http://www.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/grasshopperE3/

Please Note: If this link returns an error – visit the Lucid Central website at http://www.lucidcentral.org and select the "Keys" tab, then search for "grasshoppers."