Tettigoniidae Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Tettigoniidae

Great green bush-cricket (Tettigonia viridissima)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Orthoptera
Suborder:	Ensifera
Superfamily:	Tettigonioidea
Family:	Tettigoniidae

Katydids (in America) and bush-crickets (in Britain) are amazing insects. They belong to a group called the family Tettigoniidae. There are more than 6,400 different species of these insects around the world! They are part of a larger group known as Ensifera.

People sometimes call them "long-horned grasshoppers." But they are actually more closely related to crickets than to grasshoppers. One easy way to tell them apart is by their antennae. Katydids have very long antennae, sometimes even longer than their whole body! Grasshoppers, on the other hand, always have much shorter antennae.

Masters of Disguise: How Katydids Hide
- Looking Like Leaves
Images for kids
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Masters of Disguise: How Katydids Hide

Katydids are super good at hiding. They can blend in with their surroundings perfectly. This helps them stay safe from animals that want to eat them.

Looking Like Leaves

Some katydids look exactly like dead brown leaves. They even have fake holes in their bodies! These clever insects can be found lying still on the forest floor. You might see them in the rainforests of Asia and South America.

Other katydids pretend to be green, living leaves. They might even flutter gently from a branch, just like a real leaf in the wind. They have markings that look like the veins on a leaf. This makes them almost impossible to spot!

Very interesting visual defences: upper wings fold together at rest, with a dried-leaf pattern. Under wings carry a bright colour which flashes when they fly. A startle device which gains time for escape. See Animal colour#Startle and dazzle defences