Katydid

In the sizzling voice of deep summer insects, somewhat mechanistic, or like office supplies clattering inside plastic containers—brass fasteners and paper clips—"Katy did, Katy didn’t," the True Katydid says outside my open bedroom window.

At least, that is the onomatopoeic language ordinarily ascribed to them—"Katy did, Katy didn’t," an argument. But really, in the song of the northern populations I heard in my central Maryland home growing up, it’s more of a gentle persuasion: "Katy did, she did," the insects collectively urge back and forth almost till morning, with only the occasional dissenter emitting a four-pulsed chirp.

The next time you find a small leaf, look closely—it might be a Katydid wing, laced with veins and chlorophyll-green. Katydids, a type of grasshopper distinguished by antennae often longer than their bodies, can also be identified by their large size and prominent, leaf-like wings. But Katydids prefer to walk to the tops of trees (mostly Oaks) to sing their mating song and from which they can complete a sort of expert fall, if need be, rather than fly.

The True Katydid has three main populations east of the Mississippi and south of the Great Lakes (there are 6,399 other species, no less true to the family, but perhaps less common, all with spectacular names: Splendid Shield-back, Gladiator). Each population of the True Katydid has its own dialect. The dialects are characterized by how quickly and how often the insects pulse—a sound made by rubbing the serrated edge of one forewing— called the file—across the smooth edge of the other—the scraper. Where populations overlap, the songs vary, giving evidence of interbreeding. Large groups of Katydids call collectively, interacting with other large groups, often increasing the speed of their chirps.

As a child, I didn’t claim to understand what the Katydids said, whether their constant back and forth chatter was quarrel or applause. But lying in bed, unable to sleep in the way an 8-year old often is, I wondered which group of Katydids called and which answered. Who had started this conversation?

I flipped the calling Katydids’ chirps back and forth in my mind in the same way one alternates between foreground and background in an optical illusion—is it a picture of two faces or a wine glass? Which square is the forefront of a three dimensional cube sketched on a piece of paper?

Each night, I promised myself the next evening I would listen for the first calling Katydid. I would follow that dialogue through to be sure of the answer. But somehow, I could only become conscious of the True Katydids' song after it was already well underway, and that is the problem with understanding anything, isn’t it? Love, God, the cosmos, earth’s systems: it is so terribly difficult to detect things at their beginning.