Last Sunday, Alex texted me a picture of a katydid that he saw outside. Cy had nearly stepped on it, as it stumbled through the grass. Sunday was our one very chilly day, so the katydid was very cold, and probably fell out of a tree. Alex put it back into a nearby tree, but it was sluggish and didn't want to get off of his hand. (Probably because it was warm.)
I jokingly texted back "If you're cold, they're cold. Bring them inside!"
So the next response I got was a picture of the katydid in a big jar on our counter, lol.
Not the picture Alex texted me, but here he is in the jar!
This is likely a broad-winged katydid, and is a male. (Females have an ovipositor.)
We had our first frost warning for that night, so the original plan was to let the katydid go in the morning, since the first frost or two tends to kill them off for the season. But then Alex bonded with him, and wanted to keep him, haha. He felt bad saving him from one frost, just for him to die in the next.
That evening, I selected some branches from the different trees we've heard katydids in over the summer, in the hopes that one of those types of foliage might be to his liking.
Monday, he hadn't really eaten much of any of the leaves, maybe a nibble or two, but we gave him some lettuce out of a salad mix we'd gotten, which he did pretty immediately chow down on.
In the wild they typically die off by the end of September/beginning of October, but one post I found from a woman who keeps some indoors at the end of the summer said she tends to have them until November/December, or rarely January. So they do live at least a while longer in captivity, when protected from the weather change. (Most sources [i.e. comments on reddit] that I've seen suggest at least a few weeks beyond their usual lifespan end.)
He clicked some, that night. (The katydids around here don't have the classic "katy-did, katy-didn't" trill, but do a rapid repeated clicking.) That was encouraging, as the clicking is a call for mates, which typically means they're doing well.
Tuesday, I ordered a mesh butterfly cage for him, as something better than the jar, though it wouldn't arrive until Thursday. We also bought some romaine lettuce for him, since the bigger leaves would give him something to climb while eating, and they instinctively try to move upwards rather than down onto the ground. But since we had more salad, we gave him more lettuce from that, which he ate again.
That night, he clicked a LOT. He was extremely active! I even got to watch the clicking happen, which was neat, because I didn't know how they made the sound. (The internet told me it was their wings that make the noise, but they tend to stop as soon as someone gets close, so I'd never seen the 'mechanism.' It looks like they spread the upper part of the wings [by their "shoulders"] just slightly, and then push them back together, like the two sides of a ziplock bag snapping together.)
Wednesday, when Alex picked me up from work, he told me that he thought the katydid was on his way out. :( He'd been pretty active throughout the morning. Alex washed the lettuce we'd bought for him really well in hot water... but shortly after giving him some, the katydid was down on the floor of the jar, on his side. He'd barely move, and Alex thought he was dead. He weakly kicked a leg when Alex touched him, but couldn't stand upright.
Best guess is that despite trying to wash it well, the lettuce had pesticides on it. :( Alex felt terrible for giving him something that had killed him, and I felt terrible because I was the one who asked him to get the leaf-lettuce for him. I tried to console Alex (and me) that hey, he would almost certainly have died on Sunday if we hadn't brought him in; we've only heard one katydid outside since then, so they're almost all gone.
I picked the katydid up from the bottom of the jar where he was flopped onto his side, and he still struggled a bit, so he wasn't dead yet. His legs seemed to move erratically, like there was something neurological going on. Like nothing was working the way it should, or moving the way it was trying to. His legs would stick out at weird angles, or sometimes get stuck hooked over his back.
I took everything out of the jar minus a paper towel, a cotton ball in a dish of water, and one branch. I put part of a steamed green bean in there, as the only other vegetable thing we had on hand. I figured at the very least we could try and give him a comfortable last few hours. (I know he's an insect. I still feel bad when they suffer.) He did faceplant onto the cotton ball, and seemed to be drinking, even though he couldn't seem to get his legs under him.
Came back to check on him that evening, and even though he still wasn't really able to stay upright, he'd eaten some of the green bean.
Thursday morning, he was still alive, shocking both Alex and me. While his legs still seemed to jerk around in weird ways, like he still couldn't control them, he was more upright, and had eaten more green bean.
(His mesh house was delayed because the delivery person said they couldn't get into the building.)
By the evening, one of his longer back legs was still kind of dragging, or would stick straight up when he tried to move, but he was otherwise moving around like he was okay. He'd even climbed up on the side of the jar again, which he hadn't been able to do at all.
I... was always under the impression that an insect getting any sort of pesticide exposure was pretty much a death sentence. I didn't think it was something that would "cycle out" of their system. Was it a small enough dose that he recovered? Was it pesticide exposure at all? Can insects have strokes??
Friday, he was still improving. He was moving around with only some awkwardness. By the time I got home from work, he seemed even better.
His mesh house arrived. I set up dish of cotton balls in water, a tiny bit of the cricket food that I have for the crickets I buy to feed Berry Mad, and a vase with branches of what seemed to be his favorite of the options we'd provided. (I think it's hackberry.) I also put some more steamed green beans on a skewer for him.
Look at him!
Going to town on the green bean skewer!
Last night, he was clicking like CRAZY. There was a span of five or ten minutes in the middle of the night where it was basically completely non-stop! Kind of loud for the middle of the night in a tiny apartment, but I forgive him.
And today, he's been moving around more and better (his left back leg had still been doing some of the weird erratic motions [you can see it sticking straight back in the picture where he's eating], but has almost completely gone back to normal.) He's climbing the branches I gave him, he's eating his green beans, he's clicking a bunch.
So yup. Greenbean the katydid, named for his favorite food. Our magical, resurrected from near-death katydid!
I do hope we can keep him around for a while longer. They aren't long-lived, but I like them. Seeing the clicking, watching him groom himself, seeing what he eats... I think it's cool to get to watch him up close.
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