Crested Katydid from Australia

bugman

March 26th, 2006 at 1:00 am

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Can you possibly identify this insect?
An aquaintance of mine from Western Australia found this outside her house. She said it was approximately 7 cm long, but was judging from site. She has no idea what it is, and found the venus-flytrap looking crest on its head quite interesting. She thought it might be some sort of grasshopper, but the rear legs and femur doesn’t look like a grasshopper to me. My guess was a type of katydid, but I couldn’t find anything with a head and short stubby body like it has. She took these 2 views of the insect. Any ideas? We are quite curious. Thanks in advance! And not only have I found your site quite interesting, you helped me identify a stinkbug infestation I had in my own home.
Cat

Hi Cat,
Back in November, we got another image of this same species, and we were unable to identify it at that time. This time a web search turned up an image without any identification. It was taken in Pilbara Western Australia. It has us baffled that an insect this distinct cannot be identified via the internet. For now, we will just call it a Crested Katydid.

Update (03/29/2006) We just got the following letter:
Hi Bugman, I noticed the picture of the ‘crested katydid’ you had been sent from Australia. I believe this is the Superb Katydid (Alectoria superba). Hope this is of help. Keep up the good work.
Aaron in London, UK

Another Crested Katydid from Australia: Superb Katydid, Alectoria superba (April 1, 2006)
Another Crested Katydid from Australia: Superb Katydid, Alectoria superba (March 29, 2006)
Immature Australian Katydid with crest (November 25, 2005)
Crested Katydid from Australia (February 19, 2004)
Crested Tooth Grinder from Australia (December 2, 2008)