Katydids

I love this time of year--the height of summer--when you can walk outside in the evening and hear a veritable ear-splitting cacaphony of insect noises.

At the top of the list is the katydid. It's a big vivid green (or sometimes pink) insect, related to the cricket and the grasshopper, that sits calmly on tree branches and makes deafening noises by rubbing its front wings together. The call of the male, answered by the softer response of the female, supposedly sounds like "katy did, katy didn't," which is how they got their name.

Katydids are related to crickets and grasshoppers. Most varieties eat plants, but some also eat other insects. In turn they are food for plenty of other critters, including spiders, frogs, and birds.

I have sometimes picked them up gingerly by the wings to move them when they flew into the house or barn, but I just learned that they can bite if not handled properly. Good to know that!

Katydids only live about a year. The female lays eggs on the underside of plant leaves, and the hatchlings look just like the adults, only smaller.

They usually prefer to hang out high up in the trees, but every now and then one will visit your window, where, especially if it's a male, you can have full appreciation of the sheer volume of music it can make.

It always amazes me that critters like katydids, cicadas, and crickets can make sounds that seem so far out of proportion to their size. Just imagine if human children could make that much noise.

Here are some fabulous pictures:

Katydid pictures