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Sticker of Mediterranean katydid
Bug card No. 2816 of 4,939

Mediterranean katydid

Phaneroptera nana
Eats: A bit of everythingGrasshoppers and cricketsGardens and meadows6 legs

The Mediterranean katydid is a light green bush-cricket covered in tiny black dots, with bright orange eyes. It has very long wings and long back legs. It lives in sunny bushes and low tree branches.

Lives in
Southern Europe, the Near East and North Africa, now also in California and South America
Length
1.3 to 1.8 cm (0.51 to 0.71 in)
Top speed
about 2.8 km/h (1.7 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless to people. Just listen for its chirps in summer.
What does it eat?
It nibbles leaves and unripe pears, and has also been seen eating moth pupae.
For real!Photo of Mediterranean katydid
Picture by Gilles San Martin. CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Mediterranean katydid about 1.8 cm long (0.71 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 3 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 1.3 secondsmoves 43 times its own body length every second

How big is Mediterranean katydid compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The female sings back to the male, and then he walks over to find her. In most katydids it is the other way round.

2

The male only goes to a female that answers his song very quickly, in less than a tenth of a second.

3

The female has an egg-laying tube about 5 millimetres long, shaped like a curved sickle.

4

To lay her eggs, she chews a small slit in a leaf and tucks them inside.

you asked

Most asked questions about Mediterranean katydid

?What does the Mediterranean katydid eat?

Leaves and unripe pears, and sometimes small insect pupae.

?Is the Mediterranean katydid harmful?

It is harmless to people, but it can damage pears in orchards.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Phaneroptera nana
Group
Grasshoppers and crickets
Family
Tettigoniidae
Classification
Insecta > Orthoptera > Tettigoniidae
Lives on
Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America
Also known as
Southern sickle bush-cricket

Where the facts come from

  1. Phaneroptera nana (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Gilles San Martin. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this 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.

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