Katy the Katydid

Today my mom brought home a katydid from the garden to show me. I didn’t know what it was so first I had to do some research.  So I got out my bug books and the iPad.  First we observed the bug and made a list of things we aw about it.  Here is my list:

• Long antenna
• bright green
• body looks like a leaf
• long hook-like thing on the end of the body

 

I knew she was an insect because she had six legs, antenna, and three body parts.

Next we typed some of these things into the iPad and looked for pictures that looked like our bug.  When we found one, we saw that our bug was a true katydid.  The body of the katydid looks like a leaf.  This is called camouflage. Camouflage helps the katydid hide from things that want to eat it, like a bird.  Katydids eat deciduous leaves (my mom says that means leaves that drop off the tree once a year) and they like oak leaves so my mom found some white oak leaves and put it in the bug cage with Katy.

 

This is a picture of a katydid from the internet.

But she was still not eating so it makes me worried and I kept checking on her.  We also found that katydids sing a song by rubbing their wings together.  And this is how they got their name, because someone thought it sounded like two bugs arguing back and forth:  “katy did”, “she didn’t”, “she did”, “she didn’t”.

Finally, after I got to watch her, I decided it was best to let Katy go.  That way I can always hear her singing in the garden and know she is there.