I was walking one of the trails in preparation for mowing and scooped up a katydid to move it out of the way. Most katydids jump as soon as you let them go, but this one found my finger to be immensely interesting. I hadn’t picked up your standard katydid, I had a handful of predaceous katydid and it thought my finger was dinner.
The creature gnawing on my fingertip is a Protean Shieldback,
Atlanticus testaceous. This katydid will eat plant material, but it prefers animal protein and will scavenge dead animals or insects and will occasionally capture live prey.
This little animal is determined to take a chunk out of my finger. The intensity of the chewing keeps increasing and if I wait a few hours I may actually lose some skin.
Now I think the plan is to remove my fingertip at the joint and drag it into the bushes to consume. This is a mature female. The wings are not functional and are represented by pads that are covered by the posterior of the shield-like pronotum.
I was walking one of the trails in preparation for mowing and scooped up a katydid to move it out of the way. Most katydids jump as soon as you let them go, but this one found my finger to be immensely interesting. I hadn’t picked up your standard katydid, I had a handful of predaceous katydid and it thought my finger was dinner.
The creature gnawing on my fingertip is a Protean Shieldback, Atlanticus testaceous. This katydid will eat plant material, but it prefers animal protein and will scavenge dead animals or insects and will occasionally capture live prey.
This little animal is determined to take a chunk out of my finger. The intensity of the chewing keeps increasing and if I wait a few hours I may actually lose some skin.
Now I think the plan is to remove my fingertip at the joint and drag it into the bushes to consume. This is a mature female. The wings are not functional and are represented by pads that are covered by the posterior of the shield-like pronotum.
Class: Hexapoda (animals with six legs - includes all insects)
ReplyDeleteOrder: Orthoptera (grasshoppers, katydids and crickets)ortho = straight and ptera = wings
Family: Tettigoniidae (long-horned grasshoppers) The long horns indicated are the very long thin antennae.
Subfamily: Tettigoniinae (shield-backed katydids)
Species: undetermined
Common Name: shield-backed katydid (general)
What if a grasshopper (Locust) and katydid matted do you thing it would be the same Locust that’s talked about in the book of Revelations 9:3-10 from the Holy Bible?