cehwiedel: Opinion, Analysis, Humor,
Satire, Mystery,
Fantasy & Facts
Fantasy & Facts
Fork-tailed Bush Katydid
The photographs show an immature (nymph) fork-tailed bush katydid (Scudderia furcata) on the petal of
a
yellow hybrid tea rose. The neighboring
rose sheltered a male and
female flower spider that would probably have happily snacked
upon the katydid nymph. I found all three critters while
trimming back roses to encourage continued bloom.
Adults are bright green, according to Yahooligans. The same webpage says that, like the crickets
that they are related to, katydid males sing to attract
females. According to TAMU, nymphs like this one hatch in the spring from eggs
laid under bark or on the edge of leaves in the fall. The
critters generally eat any vegetation: leaves, twigs,
fruit…
I don’t yet have a photograph of an
adult, but TrekNature has a gorgeous close-up that convinces me further (as thought I
needed further convincing) that I need a macro lens for
closer-than-close photos of bitty critters.
Mimbrava at flickr obviously has a macro
lens, as evidenced by this photo of a nymph much more detailed than mine.
Cirrus Image has photos of both mature adults and a nymph,
available free for non-commercial use.
Encyclopedia.com has a
short description based on the
Columbia Encyclopedia (6h Edition, 2006). It says
that the nymphs look like the mature
adults, which I suppose is true when compared to how, say,
polliwogs differ from frogs but I think it’s a tad
misleading since the nymphs don’t have any wings.
Wikipedia’s entry on katydids not
only has more pix, it also notes that the name
“katydid” is used mostly in the United States,
Canada and Australia. Other names for the same critter: bush
cricket or long-horned grasshopper.
Finally, “Oklahoma Wild
Things,” a project of Oklahoma University, has a photograph of a mature
katydid that almost
glows.
