KATYDIDS, GRASSHOPPERS, AND CRICKETS – ORTHOPTERA
Before I started to photograph “grasshoppers” I thought they were all the same. A grasshopper is a grasshopper. But then my macro lens started to argue with me. There were “different” kinds of “grasshoppers.” This goes into the list of “what my mother failed to teach me.” But it really wasn’t “her” failure. It was and is the failure of our culture and educational system to teach children that these categories have subcategories and that the subcategories also have subcategories. We humans have forgotten or never attempted to learn what these creatures offer us and our environment. We mow our lawns and spray insecticides and manicure our landscaping to the point that no living little thing would want to be there. It looks pretty but it is a dead-scape. A monoculture that disenfranchises insects that sustain our ecosystem.
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