Tettigoniidae

Tettigoniidae
Great green bush-cricket
(Tettigonia viridissima)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Class:
Insecta
Order:
Orthoptera
Suborder:
Ensifera
Superfamily:
Tettigonioidea
Family:
Tettigoniidae

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.

They are also known as long-horned grasshoppers, though they are more closely related to crickets than to grasshoppers. Their antennae may be longer than their own body length, those of the grasshoppers are always relatively short.

Disguise

Katydids may disguise themselves brilliantly. Some look exactly like dead brown leaves, complete with holes, lying still on the forest floor of the rainforests of Asia and South America. Others act like green, living leaves fluttering from a branch. They even have vein-like markings like real leaves.

Very interesting visual defences: upper wings fold together at rest, with a dried-leaf pattern. Under wings carry a bright colour which flashes when they fly. A startle device which gains time for escape. See Animal colour#Startle and dazzle defences
A green bush cricket sitting on a leaf
Katydid looking just like a leaf

Other websites

References

  1. ↑ Ganeri, Anita (2000). Jungle animals: over 100 questions and answers to things you want to know. Dubai, U.A.E. ISBN 0-75254-909-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ↑ Castner, James L. 1995. Defensive behavior and display of the leaf-mimicking katydid Pterochroza ocellata (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Pseudophyllinae: Pterochrozini). Journal of Orthoptera Research. #4, August.