Rare pink grasshopper found in East Texas

March 24 (UPI) -- A man ended up with an unusual pet when he made an unusual discovery among the Texas foliage -- a pink grasshopper.

Dirk Parker, 33, an Ohio man currently working in East Texas as an environmental inspector for pipelines, said he initially didn't realize how rare his discovery was.

"Just thought it was a normal grasshopper that we didn't have in Ohio," Parker told WJW-TV. "So the first thing I thought of was [that would make great] fishing bait."

Parker snapped photos of the grasshopper and returned it to where he found it, and it wasn't until later that he did a Google search for pink grasshoppers and discovered the insect has a rare condition called erythrism.

Erythrism is caused by a recessive gene, and it is rare to find grasshoppers with the condition because the pink color makes them easy targets for predators.

Parker said he returned to the same spot the next day to capture the grasshopper, which he named Pinky.

"It took me about 10 minutes or so, but I found that grasshopper again," Parker told KLTV.

Parker said he is now keeping Pinky in a habitat as a pet.

"I wanted to share this with the world," Parker said. "It's so cool to get to show people."