Lost specimen returns (and promptly leaves)

deformed male

Today I caught the missing Scudderia mexicana deformed male! Previous attempts had been thwarted by the animal, which refused to eat my baits and positioned itself in a heavily tangled region where its songs bounced off the leaves (making it impossible to locate by ear).

I found it in a conspicuous position on a palm frond; there was another rose pruning today and this may have disabled its auditory camouflage. Fortunately, the species seems largely oblivious to danger unless touched/blown on and I easily caught and repositioned it to a shorter rose bush. It calmed down and resumed singing very soon after I left it alone with a pollen cluster.




Edit: after the sun set, I saw the katydid slowly approaching a nearby taller bush and then making an attempt to fly onto it. It landed near the tall bush's basal stem (too deformed to fly) but I failed to recapture it. Evidently the short bush is not suitable for some reason; perhaps the animal somehow senses that the foliage is insufficiently dense? I have also previously seen females feeding on the short bush's roses and then promptly fleeing after satiation.