About Aeoloplides tenuipennis (Scudder, 1897)
Aeoloplides tenuipennis (Scudder, 1897), commonly known as the narrow-winged saltbush grasshopper or narrow-winged bush grasshopper, is a species of spur-throated grasshopper in the family Acrididae. This species is commonly found across a range that extends from eastern California, Arizona, and southwestern New Mexico northward through Utah and southern Nevada to southern Idaho. Aeoloplides tenuipennis inhabits areas across the southern United States and northern Mexico. Its food plants grow in Lower Sonoran life zone desert scrub, alkali flats, and grasslands. In southeastern Arizona, this grasshopper is abundant on fourwing saltbush (Atriplex canescens). It also occurs on cattle saltbush (Atriplex polycarpa), seepweed or seabite (Suaeda), greasewood (Sarcobatus vermiculatus), and the introduced prickly Russian thistle (Salsola tra). This species has a specialized diet of chenopods that includes noxious plants such as prickly Russian thistle (tumbleweed), and it is generally considered innocuous to beneficial in cattle grazing areas.
