A late post from 2014! My colleague and I were looking around the CEC forest for Herpetofauna in September 2014 when we chanced upon a Katydid on a leaf. The remarkable thing about this Katydid was that it seemed to be laying eggs. There was a translucent jelly like substance that seemed to be coming out from its posterior end. We waited and watched it for around 30 minutes hoping for some more interesting action but to no avail. We took a few images and videos and then left the scene.
Later when I looked it up, I found that we had witnessed a part of the Katydid’s very fascinating reproduction cycle. Katydids or Bush Crickets belong to the family called Tettigoniidae. They are mostly nocturnal and their wings shaped liked leaves provide them a good camouflage. Apparently, the male Katydid has to beguile the female by giving her a food packet (in the form of a spermatophylax) along with the spermatophore that he transfers to her during mating. The males with the larger food gift have a better chance of being selected by the female for mating.
So it seemed that we had spotted the female Katydid right after mating although the male was nowhere in sight.
Love the Wild 