Schayera baiulus facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Schayera baiulus |
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Schayera
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S. baiulus
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| Schayera baiulus Erichson, 1842
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Schayera baiulus, also known as Schayer's Grasshopper, is a very rare type of grasshopper. It belongs to a group of grasshoppers called Acrididae. This special grasshopper lives only in the northern part of Tasmania, Australia. It is super rare and critically endangered. Only five of these grasshoppers have ever been officially found!
Contents
Discovering Schayer's Grasshopper
What Does Schayer's Grasshopper Look Like?
An adult female Schayer's Grasshopper is about 3.5 centimeters long. That's about the length of a paperclip! These grasshoppers cannot fly. They look a bit like another grasshopper called Apotropis.
Female Schayer's Grasshoppers are pale brown. They have black spots all over their head and body. Young grasshoppers, called nymphs, look different. They can be pale grey or beige. Schayer's Grasshoppers also have shorter antennae than other grasshoppers in their family.
We don't know much about adult male Schayer's Grasshoppers. No fully grown males have been found yet. Scientists think males would also be flightless. They also guess that males would be smaller and more delicate than females.
Where Does Schayer's Grasshopper Live?
Schayer's Grasshopper has only been found in two places in Tasmania. These are Cape Grim and near Rushy Lagoon, Tasmania. Both spots are wild, natural coastal areas. They are not farmed or looked after by people.
Scientists believe there aren't many of these grasshoppers around. This is because so few have been found. One young grasshopper was found in an open forest. It was living among Allocasuarina verticillata trees.
The way Schayer's Grasshopper looks suggests it stays on the ground. It probably lives in short grasses. It might also travel between Woolnorth station and Circular Head. However, finding so few of them over 150 years means they might live in very small, specific areas. They are most likely to be seen in spring or early summer.
Protecting Schayer's Grasshopper
Why is Schayer's Grasshopper Endangered?
Schayer's Grasshopper is listed as endangered in Tasmania. This means any building work in its habitat must be careful. Without recent discoveries, people might have thought it was extinct. We don't know if it lives in more places than the two known spots. Some people think it might be more common but just hasn't been found.
Here are some things that threaten Schayer's Grasshopper:
- Too much overgrazing by wild or farm animals.
- Wild forests being turned into neat, tidy areas.
- Not enough people looking for them or studying them.
- Not enough information about what they eat or where they live.
- Their homes being damaged or changed.
- Small groups of grasshoppers are easily wiped out.
How Can We Help Schayer's Grasshopper?
To help these endangered grasshoppers, we need to protect their homes. This means:
- Stopping big building projects in known areas.
- Having a plan to protect their habitats.
- Learning more about the grasshoppers. This information can help create better protection plans.
- Checking for grasshoppers before any logging or tree clearing. No clearing should happen near their homes.
Scientists should search the known areas more often. They need to study the grasshoppers they find. They should also search nearby coastal areas. This could help find more grasshoppers and improve their living conditions.
Some suggested places to look for more Schayer's Grasshoppers include:
- The coast between Cape Grim and Studland Bay.
- The islands of Robins, Hunter, and Three Hummock.
- Rocky Cape National Park between Wynyard and Smithton.
- The Ringaroooma Tier area.
- The islands of the Furneaux group.
Right now, there aren't many specific plans to protect this grasshopper. Developers are just told to be careful if they build near these areas.
If you think you see a Schayer's Grasshopper, it's important to record it. Take good notes and get it confirmed by an expert!
Life Cycle and Study
Observing a Young Female Grasshopper
In 1988, a scientist named KHL Key found a live young female Schayer's Grasshopper. He found it at Woolnorth station near Rushy Lagoon. He took it to the CSIRO institute in Canberra, Australia. He wanted to watch it grow.
The grasshopper was offered many native plants to eat. These included Lomandra, Acacia, Melaleuca, and Leptospermum. It was also offered other foods like muesli and fish food. But the grasshopper only ate an introduced plant called Prunus.
In December 1988, the young grasshopper shed its skin, a process called molting. It molted again and became an adult on February 17, 1989. The time between molts was longer than for average grasshoppers. This could be normal for Schayer's Grasshopper. Or it could be because of its diet, stress, or habitat. Scientists don't know for sure because the species is so rare.
Scientists think that Schayer's Grasshoppers are young nymphs during winter. This means they become adults in the spring. The adults then disappear by about January. This idea comes from studying the female grasshopper in the lab.
How Scientists Kept the Grasshopper
The female grasshopper at CSIRO was kept in a special cage. It was a glass jar, about 16.5 cm tall and 9.5 cm wide. It had a mesh lid with a tube for food. The food tube stood inside the jar.
Scientists put plants and twigs in the jar. This helped the grasshopper climb. A roll of cotton wool gave it water to drink. A copper coil was also placed in the jar. This helped the grasshopper during molting.
The jar was kept at a steady temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. It had 14 hours of light and 10 hours of darkness each day. The amount of moisture in the air (humidity) was not controlled.
History and Discovery
The First Discoveries
The first Schayer's Grasshopper was found in 1842. It was discovered by Aldolphus Schayer. He was a manager at a property in Woolnorth, Tasmania. Aldolphus Schayer found three female grasshoppers. No males were found at that time.
Schayer's Grasshopper was not seen again for a long time. Then, on October 9, 1988, E. J. Zurcher and C. A. Gilbert found a dead young male grasshopper. They found it for KHL Key. Key realized it was the rare Schayer's Grasshopper. He concluded that the species lived only in Tasmania. He also realized it was not extinct.
Later, Key himself found a live young female Schayer's Grasshopper. This was on November 15, 1988, near Cape Grim. After that, Key and his team went back to where the male grasshopper was found. They searched for several days in January 1989. But they did not find any more grasshoppers.
