I really enjoy these late summer evenings and nights. But not for the warmth but rather for the sounds that fill the night air. I am not sure if you have noticed, but the sounds you can hear outside at night cannot be heard at any other time of year. The spring and summer months have a nice, pleasant sound from the few insects that are calling, but it doesn’t even come close to the soothing sounds of late summer.

The sounds of late summer kind of creep up on us without us noticing. Each evening a few more insect species join the orchestra of evening sounds. To understand why the night sounds are so loud, you need to understand the life cycle of many of our insects. In the northern states, most insects will spend the winter as an egg. With the warmth of spring the insect eggs start to hatch. Most insects go through several different life stages as they develop into reproductive adults. For example, it may take two weeks for the eggs to hatch into a larva form. The larva form, or worm-like stage, can take another four weeks or longer.

Then they go into the metamorphosis stage where the insect rests for a week or two before emerging as the adult form of the insect. It is the adult form that is able to sexually reproduce. This often involves the males singing or calling for females and it took most of the summer to get to this stage of life. So, what you hear outside at night are the adult’s calling to attract mates so they can lay eggs that will survive until next spring. And it took all spring and summer to get to this point.

One of these night-time songsters is the Conehead Katydid. They are a group of large, green insects, that all look and sound similar. They are easily recognized by the unique cone-shaped foreheads, extremely long antennae and very long angular legs. The cone shaped head really gives them a distinctive look. No one knows why the head is uniquely shaped or what function it performs. But soon as you see one of these insects you will notice the cone shaped head.

Most of these katydids are two to three inches long, which makes them one of the larger insects. They are bright green in color which allows them to blend into their environment. Some species of Coneheads are brown. As you might imagine, a large juicy insect like this would be a good meal for many other critters. In fact, the Conehead Katydids are a favorite insect for parasitic wasps. The adult wasps capture and sting the katydid to paralyze it. The wasp flies back to its underground chambers where it leaves the helpless katydid as a fresh meal when the wasp eggs hatch and need to eat.

Coneheads have large powerful jaws which they use to eat both other insects and fruit and seeds. They are fastidious cleaners, using their mouths to clean their feet all the time. They have extremely long antennae which are sometimes longer than the body. The females have long, straw-like appendage coming out of their abdomen. This is called the ovipositor and is used to deposit eggs into plant tissue or into the ground.

They are found in weedy fields, native prairies, wetlands and along forest edges. They can be very common in rural and suburban areas.

It is the male that is the songster. In fact, this is how they received their name by the sound produced by rubbing their wings together. They rub the sharp edge of one wing over the file-like ridge on the other wing to produce a sound like “katy-did-katy-did, katy-didn’t”.

Combine hundreds of these calls along with a myriad of other insects and you have the wonderful sounds of the late summer nights. Until next time…

Stan Tekiela is an author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the U.S. to study and capture images of wildlife. He can be followed on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. He can be contacted via his website at www.NatureSmart.com.