LONDON – A young boy in England discovered and captured a rare pink grasshopper!
Daniel Tate, 11 years old, was on a nature trail in Seaton Marshes in Devon when something caught his eye. “I was looking for grasshoppers when I saw something pink. I thought it was a flower but I saw it moving, so I tried to catch it.
“It jumped and then I knew it was a grasshopper.”
Tate caught the grasshopper and brought it to nature experts, who have verified that it is an adult female grasshopper that was born pink through a genetic mutation.
Fraser Rush, nature reserves officer for East Devon District Council, said: “There are millions of common green grasshoppers but I have never seen a pink one. The female comes in a variety of colors, normally different shades of green and brown. Occasionally it tends towards purple, but this is a leap beyond that to pink.”
While pink is not unheard of, it is the intensity of the pink that had experts so surprised. As the grasshopper has reached adulthood and remains the same color, it is likely that it will pass the “pink gene” down to its offspring.
After it was examined, the grasshopper was released back into the nature reserve.
