Katydid Gallery

All of these pictures were taken in our yard in Portland, Oregon. I don't know the exact species as there are many in the United States, either native or introduced, and I don't know which ones live in Oregon.

Adult Katydids

My Little Gift to You

I was about to prune a spent blossom from one of our most productive rose bushes when I noticed this adult katydid gorging itself on the rose petals. I dropped the shears and grabbed my camera and settled in for some pictures. It was already late in the day and a light breeze and the tall stem made photography challenging, but fortunately for me the katydid returned the following day and I took pictures as it enjoyed its supper. I left the decaying blossom for a week until it was clear the katydid was no longer dining there, a little way of saying thanks for letting me get some of my favorite katydid pictures.

Split Screen

I found this katydid on a rose bush beside our house, devouring a spent rose blossom. After taking some more traditional pictures from the side, I moved around in front and was delighted at what I saw. The rose petal it was eating was nearly vertical and by positioning myself just right, I could split the katydid down the middle with an eye on either side of the petal. The petal mostly obscures the katydid’s formidable mandibles, giving it a less threatening look.

Live View

My main camera is several generations old and when it’s time to upgrade, one of the things I’m looking forward to is how much more fun macro photography will be with the live view mode of modern SLR’s. It will be nice to setup the tripod and watch the screen instead of hunching over and squinting into the viewfinder, especially when working near our many (and thorny) rose bushes. The roses have snared enough pounds of my flesh.

This picture of an adult katydid was taken handheld in 2006, it was eating the petals of a spent rose blossom from one of the old bushes beside the house. A little side benefit about having a dog is that we usually take Ellie out through the back and walk her past this side of the house, so now we get to see the rose bushes daily when before we wouldn’t see them at all.

A Sign

I’ve adopted a live-and-let-live policy towards the katydids in our yard. Unlike the swarms of little aphids, there aren’t very many of them and they don’t do much damage, so I tolerate a few chewed up plants in exchange for a few pictures. It’s actually more than a live-and-let-live policy, as when I trim the roses I try to make sure that any katydids on the cut stems make it safely back to the main plant before the stems go in the yard waste bin. The fact that I go to any effort to save the lives of some of my garden pests is probably a sign that I need to see a therapist.

This katydid preferred the gladiolus over the roses, you can see a hole in the stem that it has gouged out. The flowers were already spent so it wasn’t really hurting anything.

A More Worrisome Sign

We’ve had two larger katydids this year, both of which are hanging around the side of the house where there are a handful of rose bushes and a few stray gladiolus (at least I think that’s what they are). They may be an intermediate stage between the little juveniles and full-grown adults, as they seem to have some characteristics of each, or it could be they were a different species from the other large ones I've seen.

This one of the pair prefers the gladiolus and is usually close enough to photograph, while the other prefers a particular rose bush where it is often nearly out of sight and too far away for pictures, so I’ve nicknamed them Katydid and Katydidn’t.

Perhaps an even more worrisome sign than saving the lives of your garden pests is giving them nicknames.

Immature Katydids

An immature katydid walks along the edge of a leaf of a purple coneflower plant

Horned

Katydids change a bit in appearance as they grow older. I find the look of the juveniles even more intriguing than the adults and especially like the little horn at the top of their heads.

Empathy Is A Dangerous Thing

One unexpected consequence of photographing the bugs of your yard is that you realize how splendid some of these creatures really are, such as this immature katydid. All of the details too small for the human eye are shown in their glory in the macro photograph.

Suddenly they are no longer an unseen pest wreaking havoc on the flowers of the garden, or even unseen predators of those pests. They will all suffer equally at the hands of a general-purpose insecticide. Empathy is a dangerous thing — something politicians and religious leaders have known for millenia — and while I’ve never been a big believer in widespread use of insecticides in my gardens, I’m even more hesitant to use it now.

Perhaps too much so by the look of some of the plants …

Mountaintop

This immature katydid was exploring one of our rose bushes, the gentle curves of the rose petals reminded me of standing atop the rolling hills of the southeast.

Immature katydid standing on rose petals

Other Immature Katydid Pictures

Immature katydid standing in a rose blossom

Immature katydid cleans its hands while standing on rose petals

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