These colourful insects are named after the explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, who reported great numbers of them as he travelled through the Deaf Adder Creek area, which runs off the South Alligator River on the Northern Territory’s Arnhem Land plateau in 1845.
They are only found in a few places – Kakadu, West Arnhem Land, Nitmiluk National Park, and Keep River National Park on the Northern Territory’s western border where shrubs of the genus Pityrodia grow. The grasshoppers are very fond of eating the Pityrodia plant that they will remain on a single shrub for life.