Common true katydid

Pterophylla camellifolia

Name means: “the male's song sounds like "ka-ty-did", and that gave all katydids their name”

Eats: Plants Grasshoppers and cricketsForests and woods6 legs

The common true katydid is a green insect that looks like a leaf, which helps it hide in the treetops. At night the males sing a loud, scratchy "ka-ty-did". Unlike most of its cousins, it hardly flies at all and prefers to walk, run or hop.

Lives in

Southeastern Canada and the eastern United States, high up in leafy trees

Length

5 cm (2 in)

Top speed

about 4.7 km/h (2.9 mph)

On foot, estimate

Can it hurt you?

Harmless

Harmless. It is a gentle leaf eater.

What does it eat?

It eats the leaves of the trees it lives in.

Photo of Common true katydid — Picture by James St. John. CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

as long as 8 grains of rice in a rowas long as 1.5 toy building bricks in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 0.8 secondsmoves 26 times its own body length every second

How big is Common true katydid compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

Common true katydid about 4.7 km/h (2.9 mph)

A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)

A kid running fast about 13 km/h (8.1 mph)

A grown-up on a bike about 25 km/h (16 mph)

cool stuff

Fun facts

It sings faster when it is warm and slower when it is cool.

In some places many katydids sing together at the same time, like a big choir.

Katydids in different places sing different songs, with more or fewer beats.

It lives so high up in the trees that people hear it much more often than they see it.

you asked

Most asked questions about Common true katydid

?Why is it called a katydid?

Because the male's song sounds like "ka-ty-did". All katydids got their name from this one.

?How big is a common true katydid?

It can grow up to about 5 centimetres long.

?Can katydids fly?

This one almost cannot. It walks, runs and hops instead.

For bug experts

Scientific name: Pterophylla camellifolia
Named by: Fabricius, 1775
Group: Grasshoppers and crickets
Family: Tettigoniidae
Classification: Insecta > Orthoptera > Tettigoniidae
Lives on: North America
Also known as: Northern true katydid, Rough-winged katydid

Where the facts come from

Pterophylla camellifolia (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
Picture by James St. John. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.