During the first years of the current resurvey project, it became clear that to document the time at which grasshoppers first hatch, enter their different developmental stages, juveniles collected in the field had to be correctly identified. Unlike adult grasshoppers, for which identification keys and descriptions exist, little is known about how a given grasshopper species looks as a juvenile. This key provides juvenile characteristics of a diverse group of grasshoppers in the genus Melanoplus that are commonly found in Colorado. In the future, we hope expand this juvenile key to include more Melanoplus species and other grasshopper subfamilies.

The Australian department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, provides helpful insight into determining the developmental stage of grasshoppers.

For a tutorial on how to use the key, helpful vocabulary terms, and a useful key to adult grasshoppers we recommend the Lucid key to identifying Adult grasshoppers.