Seeing a katydid
Seeing a katydid is rare compared with hearing one: these leaf-green insects sing high in the trees on late-summer nights. Their song gave them a name and a quarrel that starts over every evening, like some old family arguments.
What it may mean
On August nights across the East, the treetops fill with a rasping three-beat call that people long ago heard as "Katy did, Katy didn't." The insect got its name from the song, and children were told the singers were arguing over what a girl named Katy did or did not do. Nobody knows the end of the story, and the debate starts again every night. Males in neighboring trees even take turns, so the argument goes back and forth until the cold of fall ends it. A katydid on your screen is a funny reason to ask which old arguments you are still having: the same disagreement with a sibling every holiday, the same point at every meeting, the debate with yourself about a decision long past. Some are worth settling, and some are simply how you keep each other company.
Depending on how you saw it
A katydid on the screen at night
At night, katydids come down to lit windows and cling to screens, their wings veined like leaves. Up close they look carved out of a plant. Which person around you goes unnoticed until they step into the light?
The chorus slowing in early fall
As nights cool in September, the katydid song gets slower and drags, and by October it stops. The argument fades without anyone winning. Which disagreement in your life might simply run out of energy if you stopped feeding it?
A pink katydid
Now and then someone finds a bright pink katydid, the result of a rare genetic variation. Pink ones are easy for birds to spot, so few survive long. Which unusual trait of yours has felt like a risk, and has it also been a gift?
Mistaking it for a grasshopper
Katydids have long, threadlike antennae, often longer than the body, while grasshoppers have short ones. Katydids sing chiefly at night, grasshoppers by day. Which two people in your life do you keep confusing, and what is the detail that tells them apart?
Why it happens in nature
Katydids are leaf-like relatives of crickets and grasshoppers. Males sing by rubbing a file on one forewing against a scraper on the other, and the common true katydid calls from high in trees on late-summer nights, often in alternating groups. Their song slows as temperatures fall and has generally ended by October.
To reflect on
Which old argument do you keep having, and is it one you want to settle or one you enjoy?