Grasshopper eggs are large in relation to the size of the insect. They are usually laid in spring or summer beneath the surface of the ground by the female. She uses the tip of her abdomen to burrow into the soil. She then deposits the eggs in compact masses, or pods, and surrounds them with a frothy substance that she secretes. This sets the soil particles like a cement wall around the pod. Thus protected, the eggs remain until they hatch, the nymphs struggling to the surface where they eventually progress through a series of moults to the adult stage.

Locust is the common name for several species of short-horned grasshoppers that often increase suddenly in numbers and undertake mass migrations. Desolation and famine can be left in their wake, as the huge numbers consume vast areas of vegetation. Locusts were one of the ten plagues visited upon Pharaoh as recounted in the Bible.

Grasshoppers belong to the insect order Orthoptera, which also includes the crickets.

Grasshoppers are found on all the continents except Antarctica. Of the 12 500 species found worldwide, 1080 are found in North America.