This grasshopper is native to southern North America including Mexico and the south-western United States from California to Texas.

Vagrants are occasionally found in Colorado, Utah, and Oklahoma, where the winters are too cold for them to survive, otherwise.

It lives in many habitats including desert, woodland, and lower elevation mountainous areas.

[3] Despite reaching high population densities, this particular species does not swarm as locusts, which is a distinct behavior accompanied by a gregarious phase change.

Rather, the grasshoppers reached swarm proportions despite in solitary form, as a result of being an invasive species in an extremely favorable environment.