It's fairly common to see a grasshopper with a leg missing but not often do I see just the legs. This set of hind legs was left hanging in the lavender by its orthopteran owner, who must have met its demise in the beak of a bird or the jaws of a lizard. The claws may have been secured in the lavender flower; the grasshopper might have been preparing to molt. In a reversal of autotomy, where a leg will break off and be sacrificed to an attacking predator in order to let the grasshopper escape death, this time only the legs remain.
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The other day, I saw a full set of grasshopper extremeties laying on the sidewalk, and wondered if maybe a bird had removed just the body, perhaps to make it easier to cram down into the gullet of its hungry baby.
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