Angular-winged Katydid

The angular-winged katydid is a bright green, leaf-mimicking insect found in trees and shrubs across much of eastern and central North America. Its broad forewings are shaped and veined so closely like real leaves that the insect nearly disappears against foliage, an adaptation shared with its close relative, the broad-winged katydid.

Active mainly at night, it spends its life high in tree and shrub canopies, where males produce quiet, irregular calls to attract mates while relying on camouflage to avoid the many birds and bats that hunt in the same habitat.

• Body length about 5–6.5 cm including the wings
• Bright leaf-green coloration overall
• Wings held roof-like over the body, broad and leaf-shaped with an angular leading edge
• Wing venation closely resembles the veins of a real leaf
• Long, thread-like antennae, often longer than the body
• Very similar to the broad-winged katydid (Microcentrum rhombifolium); told apart mainly by subtle wing shape differences

Found in deciduous and mixed forests, orchards, parks, and shrubby edges across the eastern and central United States and southern Canada, almost always in the canopy of trees and shrubs rather than on the ground.

A strictly herbivorous, nocturnal insect that feeds on the leaves of a variety of trees and shrubs. Males produce soft, irregular ticking or rasping calls at night by rubbing specialized structures on their wings together, a behavior known as stridulation, to attract females. Its leaf-like camouflage is its primary defense against predators such as birds and bats.

Eggs are laid in neat, overlapping rows along twigs in late summer and fall and overwinter there. They hatch the following spring into wingless nymphs, which molt through several instars over the summer while developing wing pads. There is one generation per year, with adults active from summer through fall before dying off with cold weather.