Katydids comprise a diverse group of insects particularly well adapted to survival in rainforest because of their exceptional camouflage. Most katydids are well camouflaged with brown or leaflike green markings.
The Lichen Katydid, Markia hystrix (Orthoptera - Tettigoniidae), however, has one of the most incredible camouflages of all. It resembles the pale greenish-white lichens on which it lives in rainforest treetops. Not only does the color match the lichens, but the body and legs have a bizarre assortment of spines and points that blend well with lichens, in fact, so well that this insect is extremely difficult for predator to find.
This astonishing insect is known to occur in Central America (Costa Rica, Panama), Colombia and Ecuador.
Mt. Sentinel, Lolo National Forest, MT September 12, 2015 Robert Niese
BugGuide has become an indispensable resource for all my insect identification needs, but rarely do I come across pages so eloquently and comprehensively written as those by David Ferguson. His passion for band-winged grasshoppers makes these entries a joy to read:
“T. verruculata suffusa is one of the most common and conspicuous Band-wing Grasshoppers in open pine forests of the Rockies and Sierras, where it can be seen (and heard) on most any warm summer or autumn day. The “crepitation” produced in flight is a relatively loud crackling sound, and sometimes males will hover and crackle for several seconds at a time. Never is it so loud and conspicuous as Circotettixspecies (to which it is related and similar), but nearly so.”
Giant katydid (Stilpnochloracouloniana) enjoying a piece of squash
Something neat about katydids that you can clearly see here is that they have ears in their front legs- that’s what those slits just below his elbows are.
If you have ever travelled or lived in China, you quickly observe that crowds form at the drop of a hat, whether it be to watch a game of chequers, minor domestic arguments, traffic accidents…and for foreigners. This happens in the big cities as much as it does in the more remote provinces, but when you are one of just a handful of 外国人(foreigners) in a third- or fourth-tier Chinese city and you are wielding a big camera with a flash diffuser AND you have China’s largest Orthopteran, P.titan (which very few Chinese people would be even aware exists), performing a threat display on your knee in the local park, the exponentially growing band of onlookers stands and stares in silent and, I will admit, unsettling curiosity.
So picture, if you will, the unseen scene in this image. I politely indicated that the crowd move aside so that I didn’t have them in the background of this shot. Behind and to the sides of me however, is a throng maybe two or three deep slowly creeping closer and closer as new arrivals at the rear of the pack push and strain to see what the commotion is.
I should have put my hat on the ground and collected some change…..
See more images of Pseudophyllus titan in my Flickr photostream HERE.
Fun Fact: Female horsehead grasshoppers are twice as large as the males. (Check out the “image source” link - they have a bunch of great pictures of these bizarre bugs!)
I love seeing people learn for the first time just how mind-meltingly vast and ancient the arthropods are.
Grasshoppers as a group are around 250 millions years old. To put that in perspective, the first dinosaurs showed up 230 million years ago. Grass is a relative youngster and has only been around for an estimated 66 million years.
So, yes, dinosaurs are also older than grass.
What were grasshoppers (and herbivorous dinosaurs) eating before there was grass to hop on? Get ready for a very not-exciting answer; they were just eating other older plants that were not grass. Plants first took to land around 700 million years ago.
Luckily grasshoppers are not particularly picky about what they will put in their mouth-holes. Some are perfectly happy to dine on meat when it’s available, even the meat of other grasshoppers. The evolutionary pitch for grasshoppers was basically “make a very hungry wood-chipper and then give it legs to throw itself at food”.
Nowadays most grasshopper species do have a preference for grass though, so this reaction is pretty accurate:
With my field guides and my main literature resource explored, this blog returns to the showcase of many beautiful and wonderful insects of Ontario (and beyond)! This insect is actually one of the few insects that isn’t included in the current Audubon field guide, so lets revisit it today. True to her name, she has shortened wings across her back. This is how they’re commonly seen, but you might be able to find one with elongated wings if you’re lucky! With a blade on her abdomen, she’s definitely a female specimen. She was observed crawling on a goldenrod stem that’s gently drooping down due to the weight of the Katydid (and maybe the snail hiding underneath the leaves?). Looks like she was searching among the flowers for a tasty snack. While the flowers didn’t get more than a nibble, there are pieces of leaf in between her mandibles in some images, and in some other images are her legs which she cleans every so often as she travels. It’s amazing just how simple yet sophisticated an Orthopteran’s mouthparts are: delicate enough to clean without scraping the legs, but powerful enough to tear plants and soft-bodied insects for nourishment. The mandibles are the prominent insect mouthpart given that they do most of the chewing, but let’s highlight some other important mouthparts.
Let’s get started with insect lips (really). They aren’t lips as we know them, but they act as supports to keep any food in their grasp contained while they shovel it in. They are known as the labrum (front lip) and the labium(back lip), acting more like plates and graspers. With the food stable, flexible structures that hang down from mouth called palps,and set of secondary jaws calledmaxilla(maxillae plural). The latter are used to orient the food around while its being chewed. They come in handy for pushing food into the mandibles and navigating a captured insect in search of a soft spot (this Katydid may not appreciate the later since they tend to be opportunistic rather than hunters). The palps on the other hand are used to sense, assess and “taste” the food. They don’t necessary function as primary tongues, but they are essential for the insect to interpret the world around it. The Larger palps in the front are called maxillary palps while a set of smaller palps on the back lip are called (you guessed it) labial palps. All these parts work together harmoniously to keep this Katydid well fed as she explores the forest, while carnivorous insects would use these same mouthparts as powerful weapons to hunt. They certainly are effective either way, but there are other alterations to those mouthparts that help other insects thrive. Mosquitoes for example, they don’t use mandibles to tear up food. What other insects can you think of? Check the guides if you need to.
Pictures were taken on September 11, 2021 in Kleinburg with a Google Pixel 4.
This is an exhaust vent, and katydids take readily to flight, so it’s in no danger of being sucked in, or blown off with no way to right itself. The katydid additionally is not being forced to stay on the vent, and likely was just sitting there when the fan was turned on – and is keeping quite a good grip on it, as they often do in heavy winds.
