Yellow Katydid

bugman

June 22nd, 2011 at 9:44 am

Categories

funny bright yellow bug
Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina
June 21, 2011 8:16 pm
hello there, i love the your facebook blog and scoured thru your website to find this bug before posting.
I found perched on top of one of my swiss chard plants, and then finally stayed on the green beans till the end of the day. I’m in the garden all the time, but have never seen one of these things. It’s super thin, and was about two inches long. My first reaction (while picking green beans) was ”what a strange bug, I hope it’s beneficial?!” after taking the pictures i noticed it is missing one of the back legs. I watched it for a long time, but it never did anything. I hope you can help, would hate to find out that i should have removed this bug.
Thanks
Signature: Beneficial Bug Lover

yellow katydid nc 300x251 Yellow Katydid

Yellow Oblong Winged Katydid

Dear Beneficial Bug Lover,
This is a Katydid, and while most Katydids are green in color, there are occasionally pink mutations or color variations as well as even rarer colors like yellow. We found a matching image on BugGuide that is identified as an Oblong Winged Katydid, Amblycorypha oblongifolia. We will check with Katydid expert Piotr Naskrecki to see if he can verify our identification, however, he may be on summer break and unavailable right now.

Piotr Naskrecki responds
Hi Daniel,
This indeed looks like A. oblongifolia.
Cheers,
Piotr