I first observed and photographed these wingless grasshoppers in early September 2007 in a rocky area north and east of the Obstruction Point parking area in Olympic National Park. Note that the identification remains tentative. I’ve presented some identification characteristics, but I’m not a professional entomologist. In 2008, I sent male and female mated pairs to Dan Otte, grasshopper expert at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, where the type specimens for Nisquallia olympica are in the collection. (Thanks to helpful folks on bugguide.net for the initial tip on indentification.)
Females are larger and more easily noticed. The female is in the lower center in image 1. From the look of her stretched abdomen, and it’s apparent angle, I guess she is laying. It’s not easy getting field photos of a male and female in a single frame, but not mating or mate guarding. In this case, they were mating, but jumped apart just before I took this photo.
I’ve photographed the grasshoppers at several other locations between Blue Mountain and Hurricane Hill. They always seem to favor large scree at the edges of low foliage. (See locations below.) The Obstruction Point site remains the location where they’re most numerous.
The Rehn paper (citation below) includes two photos of a female.
Helfer contains a figure, probably drawn from the photo in the Rehn paper.
I have seen and photographed females with a rather wide range of coloration, mostly mottled light gray to slate gray, but I’ve seen some tan or orange females (image 6). Males are darker, less variable in color, and more distinctly marked. (See Males menu item.)
You can see many more photos of adults in a slideshow format in a new page using the Slideshows menu item.
Nisquallia olympica was described as a new genus and species in 1952 by James A. G. Rehn, then curator of insects at the Academy of Natural Sciences (citation below). The description is based on two females and one (damaged) male collected at the same time, in 1922, on Mt. Ellinor, in the southwest Olympic mountains. As far as I can tell, those appear to be the only specimens noted in the scientific literature.
In 2009, we climbed the USFS trail to the peak of Mt. Ellinor, but saw no grasshoppers (of any species). Little of the environment we saw along that trail looks like the environment in the north Olympics where we’ve observed this species. The Rehn paper notes: “We have no information as to the elevation at which the material of Nisquallia was secured.” In the north Olympics, we’ve only seen the grasshoppers on ridges above treeline.
“Two New Melanoploid Genera (Orthoptera: Acrididae: Cyrtacanthacridinae) from the Western United States” James A. G. Rehn, Transactions of the American Entomological Society (1890-), Vol. 78, No. 2 (Jun., 1952), pp. 101-115. (See JSTOR link)
Jacques R. Helfer, How to Know the Grasshoppers, Crickets, Cockroaches and Their Allies, Wm. C. Brown, 1963 (republished in 1987 by Dover)
• Obstruction Point, 47°55'8.02"N 123°22'53.21"W, about 6,100 ft elevation
• Sunrise Ridge trail, approximate location: 47°58'46"N 123°28'52"W, about 5,400 ft. elevation
• Hurricane Hill trail, 47°58'44.24"N 123°31'8.63"W, about 5200 ft. elevation
• Blue Mountain, 47°57'17.33"N 123°15'32.64"W, about 5,800 feet.
• James Miskelly has observed N. olympica on Mt. Townsend above treeline,
47°52'01.54"N 123°03'34.45"W