Katydid Update

I Love...

...your little katydid! When I first saw the photo referenced plus the date I thought 'what! they already have katy nymphs in Pennsylvania?!' and felt a momentary stab of insane weather envy. Then common sense prevailed and I read on, viewed the entire photo series and got the whole story...whew! Thought for a few seconds there that you were having a VERY early spring! Sorry I can't help you with the species/genus identification, but are Microcentrum females amoung those katies that stick their eggs onto the exteriors of things, in lines? I mean, you have to wonder where your katy's egg overwintered to have successfully hatched at all. The only useful thing I can say is that yours certainly doesn't look like any of our local baby bush katydids, all of which are Scudderia species.

Ref. those odd starting/trembling fits you described, I do recall reading that some katy nymphs were prone to adopting odd postures, but can't for the life of me remember where I read that or which specific katydids were involved. Also wondering if it's perhaps similar to what cricket nymphs do at times to ward one another off--is it a sort of lunge or quick spin-about accompanied by lashing antennae and then its body jerks noticeably a number of times in the same direction? Whatever it is, here's hoping that it's a natural behaviour and that your katy is still okay either way. I also hope you keep carefully documenting your nymph's growth. It's impossible to find detailed information about the nymphal development of so many insect species yet, particularly examples of how they ought to look, so every little bit of documentation helps!

What are you feeding your katy right now? I've never raised bush katy babies aside from the odd too-gibbled-up-to-survive-in-the-wild, half-grown nymph I find some summers and there's always plenty of natural food around then to gather for those. Old-geezer katy adults I bring in just before our killing frosts start and who outlive my being able to provide a natural diet seem to do fine on leaf lettuces, mesclun mix, slices of apple, orange and carrot, and freeze-dried tubifex worms, but I'm always looking for new items to tempt them and make their last meals tasty and nutritious to the end. Oddest offering munched on so far: passionflower/maypops leaves. Passionflower is not at all native to our area and the only reason I had some to offer at all is because I had a large passionflower vine growing indoors as a houseplant that year!

Well, again, hope your little katy is doing fine and that you keep us updated as to how she(?) makes out. If you like katydids as much as I do, you might like the following links to other katy lovers from around the globe...

http://english.cri.cn/7146/2009/09/11/1481s515031.htm

http://www.brisbaneinsects.com/brisbane_grasshoppers/Tettigoniidae.htm

Cheers!

… Heimchen, 3 April, 2011 - 12:24pm

Well, when it first hatched,

Well, when it first hatched, there was NOTHING outside for me to feed it - so it got some organic Spring Mix from the grocery store. It only really liked one thing out of it - I think arugula? However, as soon as things outside began showing the slightest hint of leaf buds, I was snipping branches for it, and it immediately went over to some wild rose leaf-buds and didn't look at the arugula again. Its diet now consists primarily of rose leaves and russian olive leaves, supplemented with the occasional hibiscus flower (by far it's favorite food).

I also had a dead dwarf pomegranate seedling that I had put in the cage at first so it'd have something to hang onto when it needed to shed - and it went over and chewed on the dead leaves and the bark after I misted the cage, I suppose when they were a little softened. So, I'm guessing pomegranate is highly palatable, if it's willing to eat it in dried form.

I've also observed Microcentrum nymphs to show a preference for oak leaves and the leaf of some manner of weed/wildflower that I've yet to identify - it has narrow, pointed ovoid leaves with a serrated edge, and older foliage takes on a purple color, though new leaves come out green. It has sprays of very tiny, pale pink blossoms in the late summer/early fall, and around here, it grows in transitional areas at the edges of fields. It's about 2-3' tall, taller when it blooms.

If you're looking for favorite foods for Scudderia species, though - from what I've seen, hibiscus flowers are a good bet still, as are daylilies. Scudderia that I've observed outside absolutely love pollen. They also seem to hang out a lot on Bee Balm plants, wild roses, and . . I think it's called Daisy Dogbane? The little weedy daisy-like flowers with the very fine petals that grow wild (often in fields or at the edges of fields). I've seen them once or twice on butterfly bushes, too. Maybe you could pot up some of the above and keep them going into the fall, if you expect to have katydid guests?

A note of warning if you plan on cultivating any of the above for katydid-feeding purposes - I don't know about any of the other plants, but roses are often treated with systemic insecticides that can take months to entirely leave the plant - one source my mother quoted to me said 3 months before rose flowers could be eaten by people, never mind insects, after the plant was treated. So be careful where you buy.

I wouldn't have thought of offering Scudderia freeze-dried worms - have you observed them to be omnivorous? I've seen meadow katydid nymphs catch and eat gnats, but I've never seen predatory (or scavenging) behavior in Scudderia, so that's really interesting.

… Sonya L Volkhardt, 7 April, 2011 - 10:44am