414 



ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1923 



THE KATYDID FAMILY 



While the grasshoppers give examples of the more primitive at- 

 tempts of insects at musical production, and may be compared in 

 this respect to the more primitive of human races, the katydids show 

 the highest development of the art attained by insects. But, just as 

 the accomplishments of one member of a human family may give 

 prestige to all his relations and descendents, so the talent of one 

 noted member of the katydid family has given notoriety to all his 

 congeners, and his justly deserved name has come to be applied by 

 the undiscriminating public to a whole tribe of singers of lesser or 



very mediocre talent whose only claim 

 to the name of katydid is that of family 

 relationship. 



In Europe the true katydid is un- 

 known, and there his family is called 

 simply the longhorn grasshoppers. In 

 entomology the family is now the Tet- 

 tigoniidse, though it had long been 

 known as the Locustidre. 



The katydids in general are most easily 

 distinguished from the locusts or short- 

 horn grasshoppers by the great length 

 of their antennae, those delicate, sensi- 

 tive, tapering threads projecting from the 

 forehead. But the two families differ 

 also in the number of joints in their feet, 

 the grasshoppers having three (fig. 4, A) 

 and the katydids four (B). The grass- 

 hoppers place the entire foot on the 

 ground, while the katydids ordinarily walk on the three basal seg- 

 ments only, carrying the long terminal joint elevated. The basal 

 segments have pads on their under sides that adhere to any smooth 

 surface such as that of a leaf, but the terminal joint bears a pair of 

 claws, used when it is necessary to grasp the edge of a support. The 

 katydids are mostly creatures of the night and, though usually plain 

 green in color, many of them have elegant forms. Their attitudes 

 and general comportment suggest much more refinement and a higher 

 breeding than that of the heavy-bodied locusts. Though some mem- 

 bers of the katydid family live in the fields and are very grasshop- 

 perlike or oven cricketlike in form and manners, the characteristic 

 species are seclusive inhabitants of shrubbery or trees. These are 

 the true aristocrats of the Orthoptera. 



^gfe^^^ 



Fig. 4. — Distinctive characters 

 in the feet of the three fami- 

 lies of singing Orthoptera. 

 A, the hind foot of a grasshop- 

 per (Dissuntcira Carolina). B, the 

 hind foot of a katydid (Micro- 

 centrum rhombifolium). C, the 

 hind foot of a cricket (OryUus 

 assimilis) 



