Mystery Bug Identified!

Last week we found a very interesting green bug on one of the rose bushes in the front yard.  It was so well camouflaged that we almost didn't see it.  It was about an inch long, with articulated legs like a grasshopper, but very short wings and the body was much more oval than that of a grasshopper.

We kept checking on it every night.  It moved around some during the night, but never far from where it had been the previous night.  It also didn't seem to be wrecking the devastation on the rose leaves that regular grasshoppers do, so we decided it was probably harmless and might very well be a beneficial bug.

Then we forgot about it and didn't check on it for one night.  When I looked for it yesterday evening, it took me at least five minutes to find it, but again it hadn't moved far from where it was the previous time we had seen it.  When I finally did find it among the rose leaves, I was surprised to see that it had grown considerably and that the body was now about two and a half inches long and less oval.  Its very delicate, hair-like antennae, which before had seemed fairly short, now looked longer than its body.  Its wings were no longer short but were now almost the same length as its body.

So we did some more research and discovered that it's a katydid!  We hadn't heard any katydids singing, so hadn't thought of that identification, but that's what it is.  They are nocturnal, munch on some plant material and will eat the occasional aphid, so it's welcome to all of those it can eat.

When we were back in the midwest in July, we heard katydids and cicadas almost every night.  There's nothing that sounds more like summer than those insect sounds.  We were also surprised and delighted to see fireflies again.  It's been years since either of us had seen a firefly and we both jumped up and yelled "Lightning bug!!!"  So we had to sit out on the patio every night and watch for fireflies.  What a delight they are.