A Very Useful Katydid

It's a Sunday afternoon, and some kinda game is going on the TV, and I'm pottering around the kitchen, and we're planning to wash some windows later on, and looking at the job to come I see something on the window. A huge splop of bird poop. And someone's taking care of it for us.

It's a fork-tailed bush katydid, Scudderia furcata, one of the jillion orthopterans that inhabit our ridgetop sanctuary in autumn. At least I think that's what it is. My track record on critter ID in videos is spotty, to be kind. What I know for sure is that it has a real taste for poo. What insects get from bird poop is hard to say. Phosphates and salts at the very least. I've always read that butterflies imbibe moisture from poop because they need those chemicals to make the pheromones with which they attract the opposite sex. Katydids as far as I know use songs and calls as ladylures, so I'm not sure what's going on here. Maybe they just like the taste.

 Mine is not to judge one who eats poo. Nor is it to judge those who would spend three perfectly good minutes watching someone else eat poo. Mine is just to watch, to giggle and sing and share it with you.

 For photos and even a nice recording of the FTBK's rather weak electric-pulse song, please visit my friend Wil Hershberger and Lang Elliott's beautiful site, miracleofnature.org.

These folks are putting up fabulous video and sound from their considerable travels across the country. We've been honored to put them up on Indigo Hill, which never fails to supply interesting material for their coffers. Sorry you missed this epic bout of poop consumption by a fork-tailed bush katydid, guys. Next time!