Grasshoippers are best known for athletic leaps and chirping calls, but this flashy African jumper has a much nastier surprise in store. It's poisonous. The elegant grasshopper eats toxic plants and stores the toxins in its body as a defense against hungry predators. Most enemies know they should leave them alone. Zonocerus elegans is found from South Africa to Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zaire and Angola. The other type of elegant grasshopper, Zonocerus variegatus, is widespread in western and eastern Africa south of the Sahara. Both are equally happy in semidesert, dry forest, savannah, subtropical rain forest, farmland, or even gardens and they can be serious crop pests.
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