Cricket Camouflage

AAAS: “This hot pink cricket is no mutant.” Instead, it’s simply a misunderstood masquerader. Arota festae, known colloquially as a “bush cricket,” usually sports a deep green coat. But occasionally, what appears to be a hot pink mutant will strut by unashamedly. “Scientists have long thought this hue was a genetic aberration — an unfortunate variant doomed to be quickly picked off by bats, lizards, and other predators.”

But in a study published this month in The Scientific Naturalist, researchers found ‘ the vibrant variant is merely a natural developmental stage, one that makes it all the more remarkable that this bug [sic] is able to keep from being picked off.’ The cricket in the photo was discovered when it was a brilliant roseate hue, then “after 4 days [in captivity], the insect’s pink coat turned a paler pastel color…seven days later, the pastel turned into its more common green.” When the transition was complete, the colorful cricket went from ostentatious outlier to the typical color seen in most katydids like A. festae.

In the animals’ native jungle home of Suriname, Colombia, and Panama, about 36% of plants turn pink before adopting their typical mature green — a process of delayed greening sometimes called “red flushing.” The flashy pink coat of A. festae likely allows the clever katydid to seamlessly blend into these changing leaves.

Perhaps this could be construed as hiding in plain sight. but look at that beady little eye — what is it thinking? Probably that we looked pretty funny as teenagers.