Bug Encyclopedia
Search and identify bugs & insects — beetles, butterflies, moths, ants, bees, spiders and more — with size, habitat, danger, behavior, and how to tell them apart.
Katydid
A leaf-mimicking insect with broad, veined green wings shaped remarkably like foliage, best known for the loud, rhythmic 'katy-did, katy-didn't' chorus males produce on warm summer nights.
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Meadow Katydid
Small, slender, and beautifully camouflaged among grass blades, meadow katydids fill open fields and marsh edges with a soft, buzzy, insect-like ticking that blends into the summer evening background.
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Cone-headed Katydid
A large, grass-colored katydid named for its sharply pointed, cone-shaped head, best known for producing some of the loudest, most sustained buzzing calls of any North American insect.
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Common True Katydid
A living leaf that spends its life high in the treetops, the common true katydid is far more often heard than seen, producing the loud, rasping "katy-did, katy-didn't" chorus that fills eastern summer nights.
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Angular-winged Katydid
A leaf-green katydid whose broad, leaf-shaped wings make it nearly invisible among tree foliage until its soft nighttime calls give it away.
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Fork-tailed Bush Katydid
Slimmer and greener than its treetop relatives, the fork-tailed bush katydid lives among shrubs and garden plants, with males identified by the distinctive forked appendages at the tip of the abdomen that give the species its name.
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Bush Cricket
Known by its long, thread-like antennae and evening chorus of chirps, this leaf-colored insect spends its life hidden among grass and foliage, often heard far more often than seen.
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Roesel's Bush Cricket
Marked with a pale cream border along its thorax, this compact bush cricket produces a continuous, high-pitched, buzzing song reminiscent of an electrical hum from dense summer grass.
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Speckled Bush Cricket
A tiny, plump, green insect finely dotted with dark speckles, this bush cricket forgoes song almost entirely, communicating instead through nearly silent, ultrasonic clicks.
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Mormon Cricket
A hefty, flightless katydid whose swarms can stretch for miles across western rangelands, marching en masse in search of food and mates.
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Great Green Bush Cricket
Europe's largest bush cricket, this brilliant grass-green insect fills warm summer evenings with a loud, sustained buzzing call audible from a considerable distance.
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Great Golden Digger Wasp
A large, strikingly two-toned solitary wasp with a golden-haired thorax, reddish-orange midsection, and black-tipped abdomen, often seen digging burrows in bare soil to stock with paralyzed katydids and crickets.
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