Photo of the Day

During the summer, the Lesser Angle-winged Katydid has little difficulty hiding among the lush green foliage of hardwood trees.  Oft times, the only sign of its presence is its call, a series of short rapid rattles, “ttt—-tttt—-ttt”, issued with a second or two of silence between each rattle.  The call is often part of the nocturnal chorus it shares with other species of katydids on warm evenings.  Frost and freeze usually bring these annual breeding rituals to end.  But during our current resurgence of warm autumn weather, we found this hardy survivor in a forest clearing where it has little hope of escaping notice among bare trees and earth-tone fallen leaves.  As the afternoon temperature soared into the upper seventies, it further revealed its presence by striking up its tell-tale mating call, “ttt—-tttt—-ttt.”

Photo of the Day

Lesser Angle-winged Katydid
The Lesser Angle-winged Katydid (Microcentrum retinerve) is a common late-summer and early-autumn inhabitant of treetops.  Males like this one are recognized by the brown spot seen dorsally just behind the head.  Most active at night, they are sometimes attracted to artificial light.  But owing to their affinity for arboreal life and their superb leaf-like camouflage, these and other katydids are more often heard than seen.  The song of the Lesser Angle-winged Katydid is a set of two or three rattles given in quick succession and repeated at one second intervals.  In response to decreasing temperatures during the fall, the song becomes progressively slower and the interval between sets of rattles increases.  A hard frost ends the chorus for the year.