Episode 71: Round-Tipped Conehead – Voice of the Wild

This is Brodie with Illinois Extension and I’m here with a new “voice of the wild”

This insect is the smallest and most common of our coneheads - a group of katydids named for their pointed cone-like foreheads - that cone in this species is small, rounded, and has a small black line on its tip. They come in two color forms, green and brown, and they sing from mid august all the way until the frost does them in. This is the round-tipped conehead.

Though their songs are often unpleasant, the conehead’s are great singing insects to learn - they’re large and their habitat is wherever there are grasses, be it a roadside, meadow, pasture, or prairie. The round-tipped conehead is one of a few coneheads with a continuous buzzing song. The round-tipped is far more common than the others and has a more pleasant and tolerable tone (at least until you’re up close, then it can be a little loud). Here’s the round-tipped conehead again.

Thank you to the Macaulay library at the Cornell lab for today’s sound. Learn more about voice of the wild at go.illinois.edu/VOW