GIRL AMONG THE GRASSHOPPERS
BY AARON GILBREATH
On my family’s first overseas vacation, our seven-year-old daughter Vivian encountered Costa Rica’s enormous iguanas, cute howler monkeys, and iconic colorful birds, but the giant red-winged grasshopper stole her heart. Urbanites like us often struggle to love insects, especially ones with five-inch bodies and red eyes, but Vivian’s affection for Tropidacris cristata speaks to the lessons child naturalists have to teach adults: When we approach fellow lifeforms without damaging stereotypes about who’s slimy and whose creepy, we can experience the life-affirming power of nature and wonder, forging connections instead of closing ourselves off while recoiling Oooh, gross!
Minutes after we arrived at the rental car agency in Costa Rica, Vivian found tons of loud black birds cackling in a tree in the parking lot. “Oropendolas,” our shuttle driver called them. “Son muy ruidoso.” Even though we’d just traveled for 13 hours, neither exhaustion nor jungle humidity could dampen her enthusiasm. Searching that concrete lot, she found a big brown mantis, a striped nonnative gecko, and ants carrying huge pieces of leaf—not because they were obvious, but because she was looking.
From seven years of outdoor adventuring with me, Vivian knew that everywhere you go, you will find something interesting if you look. We’ve caught critters together in Tucson, Arizona, Hood River, Oregon, and in our Portland yard. When friends ended up with a wild gopher snake they didn’t know what to do with, they called us, and Viv named her Stripey before we released her. Here under the Central American stars, she searched the seemingly bland parking lot and found wonders that adults would have missed or dismissed as gross. “This is the best day of my life,” she told me.
Two days later, while walking back from a sweltering jungle hike along an estuary, Vivian pointed up. “Dad, look.” I followed her finger. There, on an electric line, the largest grasshopper we’d ever seen lay stretched out across the coiled wire. Had she not noticed it, I would have missed it completely. When I thanked her for that, she proudly said, “I’m paying attention, Dad.” Now we just had to find one at eye level, I said!
The following night, Vivian said, “Dad, your dream came true.” Another giant grasshopper clung to a low wall. When I managed to gently grab it, keeping its 9-inch wings down and powerful hindlegs still, Vivian and her young cousins crowded around, marveling at this insect that was the size of a pet hamster yet put out no body heat. “She won’t hurt you,” Vivian told her nervous cousins.“ She doesn’t have biting mandibles. Isn’t she incredible?” No one called the insect scary. No one called her creepy. They just leaned in close to pet her massive, striated abdomen and hard head.
Scientists have identified around 35,000 insects in Costa Rica, with thousands more estimated to have never been recorded. In the coastal Guanacaste province where we stayed, giant biting wolf spiders and dangerous kissing bugs live among the harmless stink bugs and tarantulas. In your hand, the giant grasshopper’s hooked hind legs look painful but only tickle. At night, they flap around lights, banging into walls and glass doors, which can spook people. All over Central America, they ram into people on motorcycles, flying directly into their helmets and exposed faces. During our stay, we rescued many from our rental house’s pool. When Vivian found one on the cold tile floor beside our bed, she named it Samson, after its biblical size and strength. So far, she’d named a crab Antonio, a sea slug Amber, and a mother monkey Rose.Samson spent the night clinging to a glass sliding door by our dining room. When we woke up at sunrise the next morning, Samson was still there, so we immortalized him in a drawing where I drew Samson’s underside and Vivian drew his face.
On our last night in Costa Rica, we enjoyed a celebratory dinner on a local hotel patio. As a solo musician played guitar for diners, we ate fresh tuna and mourned our pending departure. Suddenly the musician howled, “Oh man!” Everyone watched him frantically swat at his ear and back away from the microphone. With his guitar limply hanging, he ran his hands across his head. A giant grasshopper had rammed into his neck then landed on his shoulder. He scanned the ground for it, wondering if it was down by his guitar pedals.“Dad,” Vivian said, “go get it.”
The guitarist laughed and told the audience, “That was too much.” You could tell he was trying to play it cool but couldn’t. The bartender—a Costa Rican—went to the stage to move the grasshopper, but it returned to flutter around the stage light, casting its huge shadow across the ground and wall. Apparently, a giant grasshopper had climbed up the microphone the previous night and stared the musician in the face while he played.
After the fourth song, another large grasshopper landed on our waitress’ back. She stood there by the stage, holding two empty cocktail glasses, and calmly shook her shirt. When the insect landed on the ground, Vivian and I raced from our table to rescue it. Before we carried it to a secluded place far from the stage, the guitarist watched in amazement, his mouth open. Vivian gave him a thumbs up.
After dinner, she went to the guitarist’s family’s table to tell them why they didn’t have to fear giant grasshoppers. “They don’t even have mandibles,” Vivian said, “so they don’t bite!” The adults nodded while eating a brownie. Five minutes into her lecture, my wife wondered if we should fetch her and let them eat in peace. We overheard the guitarist’s five-year-old daughter ask, “What’s a mandible?”
“They’ll survive,” I said. “Let her do her thing.”
AARON GILBREATH has published essays and reportage in Harper’s, The Atlantic, Sierra, Adventure Journal, The New York Times, Kenyon Review, Spin, and The Dublin Review. His last book, The Heart of California: Exploring the San Joaquin Valley, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. His Red Canary Magazine story about the return of California’s Tulare Lake and the Yokuts people just received an honorable mention in the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment and won an LA Press Club award for digital environmental journalism. Other pieces have been notables in Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Sports Writing. Check out his Alive in the Nineties Substack.
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