portrait of a katydid
(1st post in a series)
Last August, we came across a Greater Angle Wing katydid in the yard. He was on the ground, and missing one leg. We took his condition to be a precarious one, so I brought him inside and placed him in an enclosure, thinking that at the very least I could get him hydrated and perhaps fed if I could figure out what he liked to eat. If not, I would put him high up in the same tree (where we had heard katydids clicking every night) and hope for the best.
Nearby, I found leaves that something had obviously been chewing on, and he munched on those. Oak leaves and kale were also accepted fare, and he took a serious shine to blueberries (he would mostly scalp the skin off of them). He did not seem to react to my hands being nearby with wariness or fear, and I became accustomed to taking him out and holding some kale for him to nibble on every morning as he sat on my hand. Being a male, his clicks put us to sleep every night, and we soon came to rely on his friendly and benign presence.
As months went by, and the katydids could no longer be heard in the trees outside, our boy kept up his clicks through the winter. He began to outwear his chitinous exterior as his feet became less ‘sticky’, and he lost a bit of one antenna. I had hoped that his protected lifetime might far exceed his natural one, but at least in this case we weren’t so lucky - one evening in January he appeared subdued, and he died later that night.
We still think about and miss him. He inspired me to learn more about insects and how they operate, and that is what the next few posts will be about.
bugsicles is a blog about the bugs I find in my backyard in southern New Mexico. I don’t use any special equipment beyond a cheap jeweler’s loupe and a phone camera, and occasionally an amateur microscope.