Young conehead

Long before the "Coneheads" sketch made its debut on Saturday Night Live, and certainly well before the movie of the same name, there was a group of Coneheaded katydids. The members of the Copiphorinae subfamily are distinguished from other katydids and crickets by, well, the weird head anatomy. Like most of their cousins in the suborder Ensifera, they're singers. Well, trillers. This is a very young conehead of indeterminate species. I'm finding these hopping all over the place when I walk through any field, and I was having trouble coming up with an identification because of the handsome racing stripes down the back. In the several guides to the singing insects I possess, no adult looked like this, but, thank God for the BugGuide website, I found pictures of kids that resembled the orthopterans my boots were putting to flight. These youngsters will grow fast, turn almost solid green, and start their buzzy trilling very soon. Then, if I can capture any, the telltale patterns on their cones will give away their identities.