A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Scudderia furcata
Tiny Fork-Tailed Bush Katydid Nymph on dahlia leaves. Approx. 8mm.
Urban house flower garden.
The family Tettigoniidae, known in American English as katydids and in British English as bush-crickets, contains more than 6,400 species. It is part of the suborder Ensifera and the only family in the superfamily Tettigonioidea. They are also known as long-horned grasshoppers, although they are more closely related to crickets than to grasshoppers. Wikipedia
Far and away, the most common katydid in the Bay Area is the Fork-Tailed Katydid, Scudderia furcata. I get them in my yard all the time. Was this in your garden? The females lay their eggs in the leaves of citrus trees. We have a Valencia Orange tree in the yard, and they love to eat my Dahlias and Zinnias too.
I am not sure if you ever can go down to species in katydid nymphs. This might be Scudderia mexicana or Scudderia furcata, just as examples from California.
http://bugguide.net/node/view/392906
http://bugguide.net/node/view/182787/bgp...
If you look at #1 it looks more like Furcata due to the slightly more greenish touch, the other picture are more brownish, so it is probably not the "native" colors of the nymph, but natural or artificial color processing due to light and camera.
Spotted on Jun 2, 2012
Submitted on Jun 3, 2012
+1
