Common garden katydid

Caedicia simplex

Eats: Plants Grasshoppers and cricketsGardens and meadows6 legs

The common garden katydid is a green bush cricket that looks just like a small leaf. It has very long feelers, long jumping legs and bright orange-red eyes. It is very common in gardens in New Zealand.

Lives in

New Zealand and Australia, in gardens and forests

Length

4 to 6 cm (1.6 to 2.4 in)

Top speed

about 5.2 km/h (3.2 mph)

On foot, estimate

Can it hurt you?

Harmless

Harmless. It cannot sting and is only interested in plants.

What does it eat?

It stays close to bushes and plants and nibbles on them at night.

Photo of Common garden katydid — Picture by JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ ). CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

as long as 2 toy building bricks in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 0.7 secondsmoves 24 times its own body length every second

How big is Common garden katydid compared to YOU?

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

How fast is it?

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

Common garden katydid about 5.2 km/h (3.2 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

Its ears are on its front legs.

The babies are often bright red-pink and do not look like leaves at all.

It comes out at night, when it is safer to move around and eat.

A katydid lives for about one year. Only the eggs make it through the winter.

The female uses a long egg-laying tube to put her eggs into the ground or into a plant stem.

you asked

Most asked questions about Common garden katydid

?How does a katydid make its sound?

The male rubs his front wings together, like running a fingernail along a comb.

?How big is the common garden katydid?

A grown-up is about 4 to 6 cm long.

?Where does the common garden katydid live?

In New Zealand and Australia, in gardens and forests.

Myth buster

Myth: Katydids sing by rubbing their legs together.

Truth: No. The male rubs his two front wings together. One wing has a rough row of ridges, and it works a bit like running a fingernail along a comb.

For bug experts

Scientific name: Caedicia simplex
Named by: Walker
Group: Grasshoppers and crickets
Family: Tettigoniidae
Classification: Insecta > Orthoptera > Tettigoniidae
Lives on: Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

Caedicia simplex (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 JJ Harrison ( https://www.jjharrison.com.au/ ). CC BY-SA 3.0, 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.