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One of my more bizarre spottings. This black katydid nymph appeared to be eating a small insect, like an ant or spider. I didn't know katydids were carnivorous and I had never seen a black katydid before. Possibly Phaneropterinae.
monsoon forest
I spotted this on a leaf in Alas Purwo national park.
Spotted on Dec 27, 2013
Submitted on Nov 2, 2014
6 Comments
Thanks for everyone's comments and input here - Antonio, David, Mark, Martin and bayucca. I didn't know there were ant-mimicking katydid nymphs, I've learned a lot on this one. Keep an eye out for these in the future.
Nice ant-mimicking katydid nymph. I am not sure about the subfamily. Might be Phaneropterinae. You will also see some of the subfamily Conocephalinae, but these one has much larger eyes than yours.
http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyer...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/orionmyste...
This might be from the same subfamily as yours:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/29697818@N...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/28859910@N...
Not to forget some ant-mimicking spiders ;-)...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/12243817@N...
The katydid is a close relative of crickets and sometimes called bush crickets or tree crickets. They are often omnivores.
Grasshopper nymph? ... I'll put one up now for comparison.
Nice one. It looks like a not-very-good ant mimic, and yes, a lot of katydids are predators. No idea what it is, though!
Very cool capture Dan,amazing .congrats and thanks for sharing