I have planted several sunflowers this year. Slugs did a number on them, but they did manage to blossom at least somewhat. And there are some pretty critters showing along so there will be a series of pictures in the next few days.
Today this beautiful female great green bush cricket. I was afraid of these when I was a wee little kid.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
She’s big and looks like being made of parts of plants. AFAIK, as these can bite, being afraid was sensible as a little kid.
These kinds of bush crickets have interesting names in both Finnish and Swedish. In Finnish it’s hepokatti (approximately horse cat, this species is lehtohepokatti, deciduous forest horse cat) and in Swedish they are called vårtbitare (wart biter, this one is grön vårtbitare, grön = green). Apparently people on the island Gotland used bush crickets for removing warts and Carl Linnaeus (a.k.a. L.) heard about it and named the critters accordingly in Swedish.