Mmmmmm katydid feast

After some combing around in the Kennesaw Mountain battlefield park i managed to collect some katydids and all other types of grasshoppers. I kept them in a critter keeper and theyve been eating collard greens for the past 12 or more hours so i went ahead and fed off a katydid. Oscar is usually a pretty picky eater but there was no hesitation here.

That second picture is awesome Nico!

Thanks! I wish my continuous snapshots on my camera were a little more clear in low light!

wow thats awesome

Nice pics. I can't wait 'til summer returns here. At the place I moved to recently there is a lot of open veld - I'm looking forward to catching locusts and katydids for my chams.

What other wild caught bugs can you feed to the chameleons? Katydid, grasshoppers, moths? Anything else? In wild Chameleons will probably eat anything. How about beetles?

Green bugs are always a very exciting treat for a chameleon.
Did you take Kristina's advice and snip off the mandibles before you offered the Katydid?

-Brad

Brad Ramsey said:

Green bugs are always a very exciting treat for a chameleon.
Did you take Kristina's advice and snip off the mandibles before you offered the Katydid?

-Brad

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Actually brad i saw that post after i fed that katydid off. LOL. Im not sure if the type i collected can even bite. I just checked out another one i have and its mandibles seem so small that theres really not anything to clip. I know theres a few different specie of katydid that live in the U.S. and i dont think the kind i found can bite. I may be wrong though but clipping off the mandibles of the ones i have seem near impossible.

nekrosoft13 said:

What other wild caught bugs can you feed to the chameleons? Katydid, grasshoppers, moths? Anything else? In wild Chameleons will probably eat anything. How about beetles?

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in response to your question i would say any grasshopper or katydid you find is a safe bet although i dont know if there are any toxic ones but i have never heard of any. Moths can be a tasty treat but again, find ones you know are safe, not just any moth as some are colorful for a reason. Beetles are something that can be found in abundance year round but i wouldnt recommend it. There are some softer alternative insects you can find. The exoskeletons of some beetles are so hard that even stepping on them can have some resistance. Imagine your cham trying to chew it let alone digest it. If you wanting to explore catching some wildcaught bugs, i would stick with grasshoppers. Feed them greens to detox them for a minimum of 12hrs i would say. The further the bugs are found from any human exposure the better.

i was just looking up Katydid on google.

is something like this real?

btw, we have these in Poland. I used to catch them all the time. They bite hard!

my cham hissed at a red hibiscus flower and death bite the flower.
he will go berserk seeing a pink katydid.

Yes those pink katydids are real but ive never seen one in person. I would stick with the green variety

dodolah- be sure to post a pic or video of the carnage

Nekro im sure those are fine but that thing looks pretty intense, the mandibles are not that large on the variety i found. That thing looks massive

-Edit-
I just fed off some smaller katydids i found and again, the time it takes to place them on the vine to the point they are eating it is less than a second. Anyone with a picky cham I highly recommend tracking these suckers down.

Nicodemayo said:

in response to your question i would say any grasshopper or katydid you find is a safe bet although i dont know if there are any toxic ones but i have never heard of any.

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There are certainly toxic grasshoppers. During summer, we often have these guys hopping through the garden:

Zonocerus elegans - The Elegant Grasshopper
"Can emit a nauseating yellow fluid when disturbed" (The Field Guide to Insects of South Africa - Picker, Griffiths and Weaving)

Or this one, which I have found on a golf course I play at occasionally:

Dictyophorus spumans - Koppie Foam Grasshopper
"Extracts and stores heart poisons (cardiac glycosides) from the milkweeds on which it feeds, and exudes these when molested" (The Field Guide to Insects of South Africa - Picker, Griffiths and Weaving)

I think the key thing to remember about toxic insects is that in general they display warning colours. I would not think it safe to feed your insect anything that is brightly coloured in reds, yellows, blacks or oranges.

The grasshopper in that 2nd photo looks incredible, but your right, steer away from bugs with warning colors. Here in the united states you'll probably see less exotic ones like tygerr showed but i'd say any green ones you find will be ok. Thanks for the info, very cool looking insects

i really like the black and red one.

btw, currently i don't live in Poland, I live near Chicago, IL (about 40 minutes away from it).

anyone know if there are grasshoppers in IL yet? I don't want to go out into fields just to come out empty handed, or find some microscopic ones jumping around.

Awesome!!!:d