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.
