Gardener spots ‘vivid color’ in garden — and finds a rare creature in Wales. See it
While a man worked in his garden, something unusual and brightly colored caught his attention in Wales. He looked closer and found a rare creature, according to news outlets.
“I was pruning some flowers when I caught something out of the corner of my eye,” 65-year-old Gary Phillips of Llandegfan told North Wales Live, a Welsh outlet, on July 1. “It wasn’t very big at all, just three-quarters of an inch, if that.”
It wasn’t the animal’s size but its “vivid color” that shocked him, Phillips told the BBC.
Sitting in his garden was a hot pink grasshopper, photos shared by the BBC on Facebook and Instagram show.
“I’d never heard of them,” Phillips told BBC. “I had to proper focus on what I’d seen, and realized it was a pink grasshopper which I thought has got to be rare.”
And he was right.
Pink grasshoppers are a rare sight. Their vibrant, abnormal coloring is caused by a rare genetic mutation known as erythrism, McClatchy News reported. Erythrism causes the bug’s body to make too much red pigment and not enough darker pigment.
The resulting mutation is stunning for viewers, but not so wonderful for the pink grasshopper. Just as its bright coloring attracts our attention, it also draws the attention of predators, North Wales Live reported.
After spotting the pink bug, Phillips grabbed a camera, he told the outlet. “I got one good photo before it began to move. I then followed it across the lawn on my hands and knees, taking more pictures.”
“The neighbors probably wondered what I was doing,” he told the BBC, according to a Facebook post.
A flurry of pink grasshopper sightings have recently been reported from across the United Kingdom. A woman in Sparkwell, England, spotted six of “the eye-catching insects,” the Plymouth Herald reported.
A 6-year-old boy in Ipswich, England, also saw several pink grasshoppers — and a few brown ones — while playing in his backyard, the Ipswich Star reported.
Llandegfan, Wales, is about 240 miles northwest of London.
This story was originally published July 4, 2023 at 3:33 PM with the headline "Gardener spots ‘vivid color’ in garden — and finds a rare creature in Wales. See it."
