Now the nights are ticking with katydids. We have several species in the city: check out the results of the 2009 Cricket Crawl, which listened for crickets and katydids (along with grasshoppers, these insects are all in the Orthoptera order). The clicks, tzips, and “ka-ty-did she did she didn’t” of the night will last into September. This katydid was a late visitor to the Back 40 one October. I think it’s the Fork-tailed katydid, Scudderia furcata. 
Crickets and katydids make noise — stridulation — by rubbing a ridge-like scraper on the base of the right forewing against a file — a set of tiny pegs — at the base of the left forewing. A smooth membrane on the wings amplifies the sound. They do it for the usual reasons: marking territory and telling others of their kind where they are: “Mate with me, mate with me, mate with me.”
Katydids
7 responses to “Katydids”
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i just read about how the Spotted Katydid in Australia are versatile killer mimics. They make the call of the female cicada, luring males cicadas to their deaths.
“The spotted katydids are even more amazing in that they can mimic the female calls of many different species of cicadas. Katydids were able to fool male cicadas of twenty-two out of twenty-six different species tested!”
http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/siren-song-spotted-katydid/
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So many strategies in this world, and so little time!
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[…] five legs. I haven’t heard any katydids on the street in a while, but I have run across them before in the silences of October.Katydids are classified in the order Orthoptera, along with the […]
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[…] Listening Tour. I haven’t run across many katydids in the light of day, but here’s one, two, and three […]
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[…] during the day, which is when all the previous katydid appearances in this blog have occurred: In the Back 40. On the inside of the front door. In a local meadow. In another […]
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I live in matamoras PA it’s October 24th 2016 and I had a katydid on my windshield for over 20 miles! He hung on!!! Felt terrible and couldn’t knock him off with my wipers! It’s 50° here….I thought these were summer bugs??! Is he going to die
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Some insects will last quite a while into the fall as long as it’s not too cold, for instance the crickets, grasshoppers, and katydids. 50 sounds cold to me, though. Might just be an unusually late one. And as to the dying part, I think so. Most insect adults last just a season, although some overwinter as adults (as opposed to larval or egg stages the more typical way insects species survive year after year).
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Backyard and Beyond 
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