Grasshoppers and summit disease
Sep 05, 2025
This summer you may have noticed something a little different on some of the banks of the Bow.
Terry (Johnson) has taken a handful of photos of hoppers that appear "petrified" and have died while clutching blades of grass with their eyes to the sky. He's even brought three blades/hoppers back to the shop for folks to look at.
This intrigued me so I did what many of us do these days... I Googled it.
"Dead grasshoppers clutching grass and looking up..." Lo and behold there are a bunch of writeups including an AI summary that mentioned "Summit disease." So we looked up Summit disease and are now pretty sure that this warm, wet summer created the perfect habitat for "Entomopthora grylli" fungus which affects grasshoppers.
Infected grasshoppers are compelled to crawl to high points of a plant where they die while still clutching the stem. The elevation of the infected hoppers helps the fungus spread to other hoppers.
This naturally-occurring phenomena has been verified in Alberta and Saskatchewan previously.
The samples in store look like they're preserved grasshoppers. Stop by for a look or look at stems of riverside plants next time you're out. You never know what you might see.
Happy Fishing.
